Async disk access
No POSIX system supports non-blocking disk I/O through the O_NONBLOCK interface. Some support it through a separate asynchronous I/O interface but due to its complexity and non-portability, few programs actually use it. Also, it doesn't support an async open(2).
djb argues, like you do, that they should support this through a more normal mechanism.
Why is it so hard to just do O_NONBLOCK on disk files, as you can do on pipes or sockets? Because Linux disk IO is fundamentally different, because of being so tightly integrated with the virtual memory system.
Related stuff from Christopher Baus.
posted Thu 9 Sep 2004 in /software/linux-kernel | link
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