From: Bjorn Stahl <bjst01@...>
Date: 2002-12-14T04:20:23+09:00
Subject: Re: TCP Server

> > I just found an example in talk archive about using thread with tcp server. 
> > If anyone have a solution that does not use thread, please tell me, 
> > otherwise, please accept my apology that I should check the talk-archive 
> > first... :p
> 
> I prefer to use select() than threads, for a couple reasons, in Ruby.
> My sense is that, since the whole process is blocked (all your threads)
> if one of your IO calls stalls (in any thread), then you have to find
> a way to do non-blocking IO whether you're using threads or not.  And I
> personally find select() to be sufficient to the task without bothering
> with threads.  (It may just be personal opinion, or preference. :)

I prefer to use a combination of both select and threads,
I'm a bit thread-crazy though due to the extreme ease of thread-use in ruby :-)

class SimpleTCPServer
	def initialize(port, interface, max_users = 4, timeout = 10)
		@server, @thread_limit = TCPServer.new(interface, port), max_users
		@thread_count = 0
		@timeout = timeout
	end

	def handle_request( request )
		# perform the actual request, return nil if the client should be closed
	end

	def handle_user( socket )
		while not socket.closed?
			a = select([socket], nil, nil, @timeout)
			unless a == nil
				unless (b = handle_request( socket.readline.chop )) == nil
					socket.print b.to_s
				else 
					socket.end
				end
			else
				socket.close
			end
		end
	end

	def listen
		while (session = server.accept)
			if (@thread_count < @thread_limit)
				Thread.new{
					ref = session
					begin
						@thread_count += 1
						handle_user( ref )
					rescue IOError
					end
					
					ref.close unless ref.closed?
					@thread_count -= 1
				}
	end
end