ZeroMQ

The Asynchronous Client/Server Pattern

In the ROUTER to DEALER example, we saw a 1-to-N use case where one server talks asynchronously to multiple workers. We can turn this upside down to get a very useful N-to-1 architecture where various clients talk to a single server, and do this asynchronously (Figure 3-12).

Figure 3-12. Asynchronous client/server

Here’s how it works:

• Clients connect to the server and send requests.

• For each request, the server sends 0 or more replies.

• Clients can send multiple requests without waiting for a reply.

• Servers can send multiple replies without waiting for new requests.

Example 3-16 shows how this works.

Example 3-16. Asynchronous client/server (asyncsrv.c)

//
//  Asynchronous client-to-server (DEALER to ROUTER)
//
//  While this example runs in a single process, that is only to make
//  it easier to start and stop the example. Each task has its own
//  context and conceptually acts as a separate process.

#include "czmq.h"

//  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
//  This is our client task.
//  It connects to the server, and then sends a request once per second.
//  It collects responses as they arrive, and it prints them out. We will
//  run several client tasks in parallel, each with a different random ID.

static void *
client_task (void *args)
{
    zctx_t *ctx = zctx_new ();
    void *client = zsocket_new (ctx, ZMQ_DEALER);

    // Set ...