It may be necessary for several CA client side tools running in the same +address space (process) to be independent of each other. For example, the +database CA links and the sequencer are designed to not use the same CA +client library threads, network circuits, and data structures. Each thread +that calls ca_context_create() for the first +time either directly, or implicitly when calling a CA routine for the first +time, creates a CA client library context. A CA client libray context +contains all of the threads, network circuits, and data structures required +to connect and communicate with the channels that a CA cllient application +has created. The priority of auxillary threads spawned by the CA client +library are at fixed offsets from the priority of the thread that called ca_context_create(). An application specific +auxillary thread can join a CA context by calling ca_attach_context() using the CA context +identifier that was retuned from ca_current_context() when it was called by the +thread that called ca_context_create(). A CA +client library context can be shut down and cleaned up, after destroying any +channels or application specific threads that are attached to it, by calling +ca_context_destroy().
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