Asynchronous File I/O on Linux

[blu-Z8efaSeK1ezqlBn2x/YWAg at public.gmane.org (Edward Ned Harvey)]

> From: discuss-bounces-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org [mailto:discuss-bounces-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org] On
> 
> Does anyone know of a standard asynchronous file I/O system for Linux?

I don't think you're using the term "async IO" correctly.  Unless I'm
somehow missing something, which I don't think I am...

sync/async is a term that only makes sense for writes.  If you are doing
sync writes, then your application will block until the write has been
committed to nonvolatile storage.  If you're doing async writes, the kernel
is allowed to buffer many such writes, and your application will unblock
much sooner (typically instantly) thus accelerating your application
performance.

I second Richard Pieri:  You're talking about random access.

If you are just performing random reads on a file, I don't see why you need
to clone filehandles.  Just go ahead and open many file handles separately.
More than one application can read a file at the same time, no problem.

If you need to do random reads and writes ... I don't know if you can open a
file for reading while it's also open for writing.  So I have nothing to add
here.