Re: [Caml-list] select (or polling) on in_channel?

[Eijiro Sumii <eijiro_sumii@anet.ne.jp>]

Thanks for the reply!

From: "Gerd Stolpmann" <gerd@gerd-stolpmann.de>
> Yes. The point is that you cannot interpret the result of Unix.select in
> a reasonable manner. When Unix.select says the descriptor has no data,
> it might still the case that there are data in the buffer.

Yes, this is what I thought.

> If the descriptor has data, you don't know when they are exactly
> read into the buffer.

Here I don't quite understand what you mean - does this issue per se
prevent us from polling an in_channel?

> I don't understand why you mention in_channel_length here.

If the channel were a (binary) file, I could use in_channel_length to
know how many bytes I should read (by Pervasives.really_input, for
example).

> What is your real problem?

In my program, I need to wait _only for 60 seconds_ for data from a
channel created by Unix.open_connection.  For this purpose, something
like Unix.select would be the best if it worked.

Assuming that no such function like Unix.select exists for
Pervasives.in_channel, I've written the following ad hoc external
function, which can be used (in combination with Unix.select) to
achieve similar effects.  Of course, it might be unsafe if the channel
structure is different in other versions of OCaml.  Any better idea,
anyone...?

	Eijiro

----------------------------------------------------------------------
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <caml/mlvalues.h>

/* adapted from ocaml-3.08.3/byterun/io.h */
struct channel {
  int fd; off_t offset;
  char * end; char * curr; char * max;
  void * mutex; struct channel * next;
  int revealed; int old_revealed; int refcount;
  char buff[0];
};
#define Channel(v) (*((struct channel **) (Data_custom_val(v))))

value in_channel_is_empty(value vc) {
  struct channel *c = Channel(vc);
  return Val_int((c->curr >= c->max) ? 1 : 0);
}