[boost] Re: Asynchronous I/O

From: Robert Ramey (ramey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-03-23 11:16:14

Windows has the concept of "Overlapped I/O" which permits dispatch of an i/o
request that invokes a call back when done.

Posix has aio which functions (I believe) in a similar way.

So one has the concept of asyncronous i/o without any explicit reference to
threads at least at the application level.

In one I my projects I had occasion to use this.  The windows API I found to
be (as usual) pretty unwieldy.  I ended implementing a wrapper with the aio
interface.

So it does work and can be useful.  On the otherhand, it does seem to me
functionally equivalent to multi-threading which is a more general and
perhaps simpler concept.  So it may or may not be a good idea to encourage
its usage as opposed to threads

Robert Ramey

Don G wrote:
> Of the mechanisms discussed, I am not sure I understand what you mean
> by async I/O with only one thread.