I have simple question about select() of I/O multiplexing function for socket programming.
When select function executes, it`s said that it modifies its examining fd set,
so we need to reset it again every time.
(fd_set read_fds for example..)
But why is that?
Why does the select function clears the uninteresting file descriptors on its fd sets?
What changes select function give to (or modify) original fd set?
Thanks.
all I found from book or somewhere else on web says
'We need to' reset for every loop routine but it doesn`t say how it is.
Why does the select function clears the uninteresting file descriptors
on its fd sets?
Because after select() returns, you're (presumably) going to want to query (via FD_ISSET()) which socket(s) are now ready-for-read (or ready-for-write).
So when select() returns, it modifies the fd_set objects so that the only bits still set inside them are the bits representing sockets that are now ready. If it did not do that, FD_ISSET() would have no way to know which sockets are ready for use and which are not.
Related
At some point when coding sockets one will face the receive-family of functions (recv, recvfrom, recvmsg).
This function accepts a FLAG argument, in which I see that the MSG_WAITALL is used in many examples on the web, such as this example on UDP.
Here is a definition of the MSG_WAITALL flag
MSG_WAITALL (since Linux 2.2)
This flag requests that the operation block until the full request is satisfied. However, the call may still return less data than requested if a signal is caught, an error or disconnect occurs, or the next data to be received is of a different type than that returned. This flag has no effect for datagram sockets.
Hence, my two questions:
Why would one need to use MSG_WAITALL FLAG instead of 0 FLAG? (Could someone explain a scenario of a problem for which the use of this would be the solution?)
Why to use it with UDP?
As the quoted man page mentions, MSG_WAITALL has no effect on UDP sockets, so there's no reason to use it there. Examples that do use it are probably confused and/or the result of several generations of cargo-cult/copy-and-paste programming. :)
For TCP, OTOH, the default behavior of recv() is to block until at least one byte of data can be copied into the user's buffer from the sockets incoming-data-buffer. The TCP stack will try to provide as many bytes of data as it can, of course, but in a case where the socket's incoming-data-buffer contains fewer bytes of data than the user has passed in to recv(), the TCP stack will copy as many bytes as it can, and return the byte-count indicating how many bytes it actually provided.
However, some people find would prefer to have their recv() call keep blocking until all of the bytes in their passed-in array have been filled in, regardless of how long that might take. For those people, the MSG_WAITALL flag provides a simple way to obtain that behavior. (The flag is not strictly necessary, since the programmer could always emulate that behavior by writing a while() loop that calls recv() multiple times as necessary, until all the bytes in the buffer have been populated... but it's provided as a convenience nonetheless)
Is there a way you can use select() on an single socket, without involving fd_set?
I want to make sure there is something to read before using recv() so it doesn't block. Alternatively use recv() if it immediately can return when there is nothing to read in.
Unfortunately, no.
The only way to use select() without involving at least one fd_set is to supply 3 nullptrs (NULLs) to select which effectively turns the select call into a sleep using the timeout argument.
Currently in my degree we're starting to work with sockets.
I Have a couple of questions regarding polling for input from sockets,
using the select() function.
int select( int nfds,
fd_set *readfds,
fd_set *writefds,
fd_set *exceptfds,
const struct timespec *timeout);
We give select "nfds" param, which would normally would
be the maximum sockets number we would like to monitor. How can i watch only one specific socket instead of the range of 0 to nfds_val sockets ?
What are the file descriptors objects that we use? what is their purpose,
and why can't we just point "select" to the relevant socket structure?
I've read over the forum regarding Blocking and Non-Blocking mode of select, but couldn't understand the meaning or uses of each, nor how to implement such, would be glad if someone could explain.
Last but not least (only for the time being :D ) - When binding a socketaddr_in to socket number, why does one needs to cast to socketaddr * and not leave it as sockaddr_in * ?
I mean except for the fact that bind method expects this kind of pointer type ;)
Would appreciate some of the experts answers here :)
Thank you guys and have a great week!
We give select "nfds" param, which would normally would be the maximum sockets number we would like to monitor. How can i watch only one specific socket instead of the range of 0 to nfds_val sockets ?
Edit. (sorry, the previous text here was wrong) Just provide your socket descriptor + 1. I'm pretty sure it doesn't mean OS will check all the descriptors in [0, 1... descriptor] range.
What are the file descriptors objects that we use? what is their purpose, and why can't we just point "select" to the relevant socket structure?
File descriptors are usually integer values given to the user by OS. OS uses descriptors to control physical and logical resources - one file descriptor means OS has given you something file-like to control. Since Berkeley Sockets have read and write operations defined, they are file-like and socket objects essentially are plain file descriptors.
Answering why can't we just point "select" to the relevant socket structure? - we actually can. What exactly to pass to select depends on OS and language. In C you place your socket descriptor (plain int value most probably) into a fd_set. fd_set is then passed to select.
Edit.
An tiny example for Linux:
fd_set set;
FD_ZERO(&set);
FD_SET(socket_fd, &set);
// check if socket_fd is ready for reading
result = select(socket_fd + 1, &set, NULL, NULL, NULL);
if (result == -1) report_error(errno);
Docs.
Windows has similar code.
I've read over the forum regarding Blocking and Non-Blocking mode of select, but couldn't understand the meaning or uses of each, nor how to implement such, would be glad if someone could explain.
A blocking operation makes your thread wait until it is done. It's 99% of functions you use. If there are sockets ready for some IO, blocking select will return something immediately. It there are no such sockets, the thread will wait for them. Non-blocking select, in the latter case, won't wait and will return -1 (error).
As an example, try to implement single threaded server that is capable of working with multiple clients, including long operations like file transfer happening simultaneously. You definitely don't want to use blocking socket operations in this case.
Last but not least (only for the time being :D ) - When binding a socketaddr_in to socket number, why does one needs to cast to socketaddr * and not leave it as sockaddr_in * ? I mean except for the fact that bind method expects this kind of pointer type ;)
Probably due to historical reasons, but I'm not sure. And there seems to be a fine answer on SO already.
In Berkeley socket, is recv function with MSG_WAITALL flag set, replaces having multiple read functions until the the whole data requested has been read?
I mean does recv function read the whole block determined by the size in one call, whereas the the read function might read part of the data block, and I need to call it multiple times in a loop until the whole block is read?
Yes, MSG_WAITALL tells recv() to wait until all of the requested bytes have been read. However, that it is only supported in blocking mode and not in non-blocking mode, and it only works on stream-oriented sockets, like TCP. Even then, you also still have to loop, such as on Linux if recv() gets interrupted by a signal and has to be called again to continue reading.
Since I'm not a native English speaker I might be missing something so maybe someone here knows better than me.
Taken from WSASend's doumentation at MSDN:
lpBuffers [in]
A pointer to an array of WSABUF
structures. Each WSABUF structure
contains a pointer to a buffer and the
length, in bytes, of the buffer. For a
Winsock application, once the WSASend
function is called, the system owns
these buffers and the application may
not access them. This array must
remain valid for the duration of the
send operation.
Ok, can you see the bold text? That's the unclear spot!
I can think of two translations for this line (might be something else, you name it):
Translation 1 - "buffers" refers to the OVERLAPPED structure that I pass this function when calling it. I may reuse the object again only when getting a completion notification about it.
Translation 2 - "buffers" refer to the actual buffers, those with the data I'm sending. If the WSABUF object points to one buffer, then I cannot touch this buffer until the operation is complete.
Can anyone tell what's the right interpretation to that line?
And..... If the answer is the second one - how would you resolve it?
Because to me it implies that for each and every data/buffer I'm sending I must retain a copy of it at the sender side - thus having MANY "pending" buffers (in different sizes) on an high traffic application, which really going to hurt "scalability".
Statement 1:
In addition to the above paragraph (the "And...."), I thought that IOCP copies the data to-be-sent to it's own buffer and sends from there, unless you set SO_SNDBUF to zero.
Statement 2:
I use stack-allocated buffers (you know, something like char cBuff[1024]; at the function body - if the translation to the main question is the second option (i.e buffers must stay as they are until the send is complete), then... that really screws things up big-time! Can you think of a way to resolve it? (I know, I asked it in other words above).
The answer is that the overlapped structure and the data buffer itself cannot be reused or released until the completion for the operation occurs.
This is because the operation is completed asynchronously so even if the data is eventually copied into operating system owned buffers in the TCP/IP stack that may not occur until some time in the future and you're notified of when by the write completion occurring. Note that with write completions these may be delayed for a surprising amount of time if you're sending without explicit flow control and relying on the the TCP stack to do flow control for you (see here: some OVERLAPS using WSASend not returning in a timely manner using GetQueuedCompletionStatus?) ...
You can't use stack allocated buffers unless you place an event in the overlapped structure and block on it until the async operation completes; there's not a lot of point in doing that as you add complexity over a normal blocking call and you don't gain a great deal by issuing the call async and then waiting on it.
In my IOCP server framework (which you can get for free from here) I use dynamically allocated buffers which include the OVERLAPPED structure and which are reference counted. This means that the cleanup (in my case they're returned to a pool for reuse) happens when the completion occurs and the reference is released. It also means that you can choose to continue to use the buffer after the operation and the cleanup is still simple.
See also here: I/O Completion Port, How to free Per Socket Context and Per I/O Context?