Might be an old question, but I looked into this same problem before. Since CLR does not allow you to include std::thead at compile time, you could try to use it only at linking time. Normally you could resolve this be forward declaring the class in your header and including them only in your cpp files. However you can forward declare your own classes in header files, but you can't for classes in namespace std. According to the C++11 standard, 17.6.4.2.1:
The behavior of a C++ program is undefined if it adds declarations or
definitions to namespace std or to a namespace within namespace std
unless otherwise specified.
A workaround for this problem is to create a threading class that inherits from std::thread that you can forward declare. The header file for this class would look like:
#pragma once
#include <thread>
namespace Threading
{
class Thread : std::thread
{
public:
template<class _Fn, class... _Args> Thread(_Fn fn, _Args... args) : std::thread(fn, std::forward<_Args>(args)...)
{
}
private:
};
}
In the header file that you would like to use the thread you can do forward declare it like:
#pragma once
// Forward declare the thread class
namespace Threading { class Thread; }
class ExampleClass
{
public:
ExampleClass();
void ThreadMethod();
private:
Threading::Thread * _thread;
};
In your source file you can then use the theading class like:
#include "ExampleClass.h"
#include "Thread.h"
ExampleClass::ExampleClass() :
{
_thread = new Threading::Thread(&ExampleClass::ThreadMethod, this);
}
void ExampleClass::ThreadMethod()
{
}
Hope it might help anyone.
