Problem with threads
 

I'm trying to create a separate thread for my program which basically polls using the read command. However this new thread seems to block the main thread, anyone know why this could happen.

In main I call this function

pthread_create(&mainEventThread, NULL, GenericEventThread, NULL);

which calls

/*New threads start function */
void *GenericEventThread()
{
short int i, nError = -1;
int nEventNumber;
unsigned char buffer[16];

memset(buffer, '\0', 16);

while(1){
/*Switches read mode to read events from the interrupt pipe */
ioctl(sd, IOC_INT);

/*Reads event packet from the interrupt pipe */
nError = read(sd, buffer, 16);

if(nError != -1){
/*Acknowledge the event once the event number is decode */
nEventNumber = decodeEvent(buffer);
doInterruptAcknowledge(nEventNumber);
doInterruptComplete((int)nEventNumber);
nError = -1;
memset(buffer, '\0', 16);
}
}

}

I've used pthread_self to check that a new thread is being created, so why is the while loop in one thread blocking the main thread from running, I haven't used the join function anywhere in my code.

The thread shouldn't block the main one. However, the read() call may. Are you sure it doesn't block?

Thanks for pointing that out, yes the problem was that the read was blocking.