I've always wondered why it's not possible to do this:
fd = open("an_actual_file",O_RDONLY);
fcntl(fd,F_SETFL,O_NONBLOCK);
r = read(fd,buf,4096);
And actually have read return -1 and errno == EWOULDBLOCK/EAGAIN if the
block requested is not already cached.
Wouldn't this be the ideal interface for daemons of all types that want
to stay single-threaded and still offer useful performance when the
working set doesn't fit in cache? It works with sockets, so why not
with files?
I see even TUX has to have I/O worker threads to work around this
limitation, which seems a bit silly.
Simon-
[ Stormix Technologies Inc. ][ NetNation Communications Inc. ]
[ sim@stormix.com ][ sim@netnation.com ]
[ Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of my employers. ]
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Sep 23 2001 - 21:00:28 EST