O_NONBLOCK on files

Simon Kirby (sim@netnation.com)
Tue, 18 Sep 2001 23:46:48 -0700


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. ]
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