Advanced UNIX Programming

Non-Blocking I/O

A process is put to sleep when performing I/O for one or more of the following reasons:

• A read request must wait for input data to arrive.

• A write request must wait until previously written data has been written to the media.

• A device must be opened, such as a modem terminal line waiting for a carrier or a FIFO waiting for a reader.

• Mandatory locking is enabled on files, causing a wait for locking on a read or a write system call.

Conceptually, the simplest solution to this problem is to not put the process to sleep. When the I/O cannot be completed, the system call returns an error indicating that it cannot succeed at this time. This is non-blocking I/O.

Opening Files in Non-Blocking Mode

One method of specifying to the UNIX kernel ...