Re: [Boost-users] asio: cancelling a named pipe client

Subject: Re: [Boost-users] asio: cancelling a named pipe client
From: Gavin Lambert (gavinl_at_[hidden])
Date: 2018-01-30 03:27:46

On 27/01/2018 06:50, Stian Zeljko Vrba wrote:
> Am I correct in assuming that cancel() is an apparent noop in this case 
> because of the race-condition where an I/O request completes 
> successfully before cancel is invoked?

Most likely yes.  It just internally calls through to the OS API, which 
will have nothing to do if there isn't an outstanding OS request at that 
exact moment.

ASIO can't internally consider this a permanent failure because there 
may be cases where you wanted to cancel a single operation and then 
start a new one that you expect to continue normally.

> If so, can you suggest a more elegant way  (i.e., a way that doesn't 
> induce a hard error) of exiting a loop as described here? Setting a 
> member variable instead of calling cancel?

Probably the best thing to do is to do both, in this order:

   1. Set a member variable that tells your completion handler code to 
not start a new operation.
   2. Call cancel() to abort any pending operation.

This covers both cases; if you miss the pending operation then the 
member will tell your completion handler to not start a new one and just 
return, and if you don't then the cancellation will generate an 
operation_aborted which you can either silently ignore and return 
immediately or fall through to the code that checks the member.

There's still a race between when you check the member and when the 
operation actually starts -- but that's why you need to post your 
cancellation request to the same io_service (and use explicit strands if 
you have more than one worker thread).

Omitting the cancel isn't recommended as this would prolong shutdown in 
the case that the remote end isn't constantly transmitting.