[zeromq-dev] Polling API

[Martin Lucina]

sustrik at 250bpm.com said:
> Martin Lucina wrote:
> 
> >> //  Account for both 0MQ sockets and file descriptors.
> >> union zmq_poll_item_t
> >> {
> >>      void *socket;
> >>      int fd;
> >> };
> > 
> > Why a union type? Will that not be potentially problematic for some
> > languages? 
> 
> Yes. More over it is not clear how to distinguish between raw sockets 
> and 0MQ sockets.

Right, so we agree this would be better off as a plain struct, with the
same semantics we have for zmq_pollitem_t currently: ->socket takes
precedence over ->fd?

> >> //  Construction & destruction.
> >> void *zmq_poller (void *context);
> >> int zmq_poller_close (void *poller);
> > 
> > zmq_pollset_init() seems more consistent (we have zmq_init(),
> > zmq_msg_init...())
> 
> On the other hand: zmq_socket(). Hm.

I have no opinion, just a suggestion :-)

> >> //  Pollset manipulation.
> >> int zmq_poller_mod (void *poller, zmq_poll_item_t item, int events, void 
> >> *hint);
> > 
> > What is this "manipulation" call supposed to do? Shouldn't we have
> > zmq_pollset_add() and zmq_pollset_remove() instead?
> 
> These seem to be superfluous. First update = add, update with no events 
> to return = remove.

A single call seems unnecessarily terse to me and reminiscent of the
various UNIX "ioctl" evils. My arguments against are that a) we don't need
to prefer less calls over clarity b) people understand "add" and "remove"
as exact operations.

> >> //  Getting events.
> >> int zmq_poller_event (void *poller, zmq_poll_item_t *item, int *events, 
> >> void **hint);
> > 
> > So, "Getting events" is the part that actually performs the poll operation?
> > Or is that missing here?
> 
> Yes. The point here is to return the events one by one. If there are no 
> events to return, it will wait for one. If there is at least one event, 
> one of the will be chosen to be returned.

The rationale you write is all good, but if the call is doing a poll/wait then
let's make it explicit as either zmq_pollset_poll() or zmq_pollset_wait().
Also, it needs a timeout parameter.

> I like 'pollset' better myself.

Good, we agree.

> > Incidentally we seem to be getting close to something similar to the APR
> > pollset API, which I have used in anger in the past and I've been pretty
> > happy with it.
> > 
> > For reference: http://apr.apache.org/docs/apr/1.4/group__apr__poll.html
> 
> Any concrete suggestions based on APR API?

What I write above is based on my experience with that API. They use
apr_pollset_add(), apr_pollset_remove() and apr_pollset_poll().

-mato