Checking whether or not IO::Socket::accept will block

[Vautrin]

I am creating a server that needs to take the following steps in the parent thread:

1. Check whether or not there is a client looking to connect on the local instance of IO::Socket::UNIX by calling my $SOCK = $socket->accept($socket);
2. If there is anyone around looking to connect, connect them, fork, and create pipes to keep in touch with the parent
3. If nobody needs to connect then send data to the children through a pipe that it opened up.

The problem I am having is that IO::Socket::accept blocks, so it will always return true. That is to say, if I call it, the program will "pause" until a client connects (even with autoflush true). I want to test whether or not there is anybody looking to connect before accepting a connection. Is this possible? I've googled and read every POD I can find on Sockets and IPC and still can't seem to find a suitable function.

Many thanks in advance,

Vautrin

[merlyn]

Well, somehow POE manages to do it just fine. You can either use POE (highly recommended if you're wanting to write multi-threading apps in one process/thread) or reverse-engineer the POE code to see how it is done.

[dug]

I'm probably just a little slow, but it took me a while to pick up on POE. I do like POE, but for simple projects that need a bit of multiplexed, non-blocking IO, I'd just use IO::Poll or IO::Select (which POE will probably optimize to internally).

That said, I love abstraction, and POE has some good abstractions in my book. It just depends on your task.

-- dug

[chromatic]

Are you looking for four-arg select or IO::Select, perhaps?

[Vautrin]

I don't think so. I am not trying to worry about the reading in from the sockets and file handles -- that is what the children is for. What I want is a way to call accept -- i.e. allow a client to connect -- without having accept wait until there is a client to connect. It seems like something that must have been dealt with before, because if accept waits for a client to connect before returning the system is potentially stuck in an infinite loop.

[antirice]

I think you want to take a look at this.

[borisz]

purely untested, but this is how I whould start.

use Fcntl qw/O_NONBLOCK/;
fcntl ( $sock, O_NONBLOCK, my $xx );

[Anonymous Monk]

$socket->blocking( 0 );

[borisz]

Thats a lot better! Thanks.