Starting a Zephyr thread manually

Question

I am using Visual Studio for my creating software the nRF52840 running Zephyr. 
 I create a Zephyr thread using K_THREAD_DEFINE. All works fine, but I need to modify the code to start the task manually instead of after a delay, so I had planned to use a call to "k_thread_start". 
 The documentation for "k_thread_start" suggests that I can use the value of K_FOREVER for the delay parameter of K_THREAD_DEFINE. 
 So I tried this... 
 
 K_THREAD_DEFINE ( app_GnssMsgSimulate_thread_id , 
 CONFIG_GNSSMSG_SIMULATE_STACKSIZE , 
 App_Task_GnssRxData_Process , 
 NULL /* 1st entry point parameter*/ , 
 NULL /* 2nd entry point parameter*/ , 
 NULL /* 3rd entry point parameter*/ , 
 CONFIG_GNSSMSG_SIMULATE_PRIORITY , 
 0 /* options = 0*/ , 
 K_FOREVER /*do not automatically start*/ 
 );

...and got the following compile message...

In file included from C:\SwTools
cs\v2. 0.2 \zephyr\include\zephyr\init.h: 11 , 
 from C:\SwTools
cs\v2. 0.2 \zephyr\include\zephyr\device.h: 29 , 
 from c:\Users\info\Dropbox\CoAutomation\ 64Seconds \XYZSensor2\src\AppXYZSensor.h: 31 , 
 from c:\Users\info\Dropbox\CoAutomation\ 64Seconds \XYZSensor2\src\AppXYZSensor.c: 56 : 
 C:\SwTools
cs\v2. 0.2 \zephyr\include\zephyr\kernel.h: 627 : 16 : error: incompatible types when initializing type 'int' using type 'k_timeout_t' 
 627 | .init_delay = (delay), \ 
 | ^ 
 C:\SwTools
cs\v2. 0.2 \zephyr\include\zephyr\kernel.h: 671 : 3 : note: in expansion of macro 'Z_THREAD_INITIALIZER' 
 671 | Z_THREAD_INITIALIZER (&_k_thread_obj_##name, \ 
 | ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
 c:\Users\info\Dropbox\CoAutomation\ 64Seconds \XYZSensor2\src\AppXYZSensor.c: 599 : 1 : note: in expansion of macro 'K_THREAD_DEFINE' 
 599 | K_THREAD_DEFINE ( app_GnssMsgSimulate_thread_id , 
 | ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

. 
 The problem seems to be that K_FOREVER eventually translates into a usage of K_TICKS_FOREVER, which is... #define K_TICKS_FOREVER ((k_ticks_t) -1) 
 The value of type k_ticks_t is not compatible with the value for .int_delay which is an int. 
 Can someone make a suggestion of how I can delay thread start "forever"? 
 Thank you -Craig Goldman

Einarh · Accepted Answer

Hello 
 If you do not want to start a thread right away I believe you should be using K_THREAD_STACK_DEFINE and k_thread_create() rather than K_THREAD_DEFINE as described here: 
 https://docs.zephyrproject.org/latest/kernel/services/threads/index.html#implementation 
 I believe the description of k_thread_start() is referring to k_thread_create() and not K_THREAD_DEFINE , as the note in the part about K_THREAD_DEFINE says it uses a millisecond delay instead of the k_timeout_t value in k_thread_create() . 
 Best regards, 
 Einar