Re: [boost] [asio] new version, prototype iostreams support

From: Christopher Kohlhoff (chris_at_[hidden])
Date: 2006-06-26 09:20:07

Hi Cory,

Cory Nelson <phrosty_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> I'd still love to see a utility function connect_host which
> resolves creates a socket and connects.  considering nearly
> every app will end up rewriting the wheel so to speek with
> that.

Yes, I've often thought about adding something like this.

The biggest issue that has stopped me from doing it yet is the
question of how to implement cancellation of an asynchronous
version. I.e. during host/service resolution it would require
cancellation of the resolver, but cancelling the connect needs
the socket to be closed.

Another thing that has kept me from doing it is the thought that
perhaps most non-trivial apps wouldn't use it anyway. For
example, when I run 'telnet localhost' on my system, I get:

  Trying ::1...
  telnet: connect to address ::1: Connection refused
  Trying 127.0.0.1...
  telnet: connect to address 127.0.0.1: Connection refused
  telnet: Unable to connect to remote host

I would suspect it is a reasonably common requirement that an
application display the addresses that it is trying as it tries
them, if not to the user at least to an event log.

The bottom line is that I'd be very happy to include such a
function in asio, but unless we can come up with an elegant
interface for it asap, I'm probably not going to be able to
include it in a TR2 proposal.

Cheers,
Chris