What is the difference between soap_new() and soap_copy()?

Question

What is the difference between:

thread_envs[i] = soap_copy(&env);

and

thread_envs[i] = soap_new();

Sould we use one of them or both?

Answer 1

From the documentation:

struct soap *soap_new()

Allocates, initializes, and returns a pointer to a runtime environment

struct soap *soap_copy(struct soap *soap)

Allocates a new runtime environment and copies contents of the environment such that the new environment does not share any data with the original environment

Answer 2

The answer really depends on your intention: do you want a new, blank environment for each thread (use soap_new()) or a separate copy of the existing environment for each thread (use soap_copy()). The process of copying the environment probably has some additional overhead, so all other things being equal, use soap_new().