Re: [boost] Non-blocking I/O

From: Beman Dawes (bdawes_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-03-04 08:38:28

At 03:13 PM 3/3/2001 +0000, pinkfloydhomer_at_[hidden] wrote:

 >Would a non-blocking I/O library addition be off topic in Boost, or
 >wouldn't it?

It certainly wouldn't be off topic for Boost.

But I wonder if it would actually result in a performance improvement on 
most modern operating systems.

Don't most OS's already do anticipatory buffering?  Have you run timings?

I ran some timings a few years ago on Win NT, and found that the compiler's 
runtime library was actually slightly more efficient than explicitly 
calling the native Win NT non-blocking I/O.  The build-in OS I/O buffering 
was more efficient that anything I could do in user code, perhaps because 
it remaps memory and does other supervisor mode tricks you can't do in user 
mode.

But if your timings show significant performance enhancements, non-blocking 
I/O might well be of interest.

--Beman