From: "Ara.T.Howard" <Ara.T.Howard@...>
Date: 2005-09-17T22:01:36+09:00
Subject: Re: sending EOF portably

On Sat, 17 Sep 2005, Robert Klemme wrote:

> Well, if you have control you can introduce any protocol (even efficient
> ones) that will work.  For example you can simply use an escape character.
>
> If you search the web for "mulitplexing on a single stream" you might find
> viable solutions, too.

i'll consider.

> An alternative approach in your case would be to use UNIX domain sockets.
> They are limited to the local machine and I believe they are faster than
> TCP/IP sockets.  This will also make handling on the server side easier if
> you have to server multiple clients *concurrently* - even if you initially
> prevent actual concurrency.  (From your description it's not clear to me how
> you want to prevent two concurrent connections.

i don't think there is a good way to acheive high concurrency using ruby's
thread with io intensive application.  i do plan to try a socket
implimentation however.  i just want to to K.I.S.S though so we'll see.

> I may be mistaken but I think there is no way to open a (named) pipe
> exculsively for writing.)

   open('fifo','w').flock File::FILE_EX

or
   require 'posixlock'
   open('fifo','w').posixlock File::FILE_EX

doesn't _open_ it exclusively but it does prevent multiple writers - which is
sufficient.

in my case i just have an auxillary file for this purpose - a filesystem
semaphore if you will.

cheers.

-a
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