Re: Rewriting the FIFO code

[Ken Brown <kbrown at cornell dot edu>]

On 12/13/2018 6:52 PM, Ken Brown wrote:
> This is a followup to http://www.cygwin.org/ml/cygwin/2018-12/msg00104.html.
> 
> On 12/11/2018 2:40 PM, Corinna Vinschen wrote
>   > Perhaps the unfinished, new AF_UNIX
>   > sockets code can be reused or partially duplicated to implement FIFOs.
> 
> Here's my first idea.  Associated to each FIFO is an abstract listener socket,
> bound to the FIFO path name preceded by NUL.  This is created as soon as there's
> an attempt to open the FIFO.  It acts as a communication hub for all reads from
> or writes to the FIFO.  Each call to fhandler_fifo::open() creates a client
> socket that connects to the hub.  The client is designated as a reader, writer,
> or duplexer, depending on how it was opened.
> 
> The hub is created by a process that then monitors all the clients (via
> select()) until one is ready to read or write, as appropriate.  The process runs
> as long as there are are clients connected to the hub.
> 
> There are obviously many details to be worked out, but I hope the general idea
> is clear.  Does this seem like a reasonable approach?  Or is it unnecessarily
> complicated?

Never mind.  I think I see a simpler way to achieve the same effect.  I'll write 
again when/if I've sorted it out.

Ken