[zeromq-dev] Thread Safe sockets

[Gary Wright]

On Feb 3, 2012, at 11:05 AM, john skaller wrote:

> 
>> A mutex works fine with a 0mq socket so adding one to the socket itself would also work. I just don't think it would perform well plus everyone would have to pay that price even if they didn't need it. Yuck.
> 
> I have implemented (but not tested) thread safe sockets, available in Pull request.
> 
> YMMV. Perhaps it should go in a branch or not get pulled at all.

Can you describe a use case where you want multiple threads to send/recv messages on the same socket?

The non-mutex/0MQ way to solve this problem (I think) is to

a) have each thread establish its own connection(s) into the ZMQ topology (i.e. don't share a connection!)
b) insert a mux/demux thread to coordinate everything:

client1 -----\
              +-- mux ---->
client2 -----/

The mux thread is event driven and shuttles messages as needed.

What am I missing?

Gary Wright