Re: [PATCH] add support for vectored and async I/O to all simple filesystems

[Benjamin LaHaise <bcrl@kvack.org>]

On Wed, Nov 02, 2005 at 09:29:04AM -0700, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> To be fair, the aio system calls were never _guaranteed_ to not block,
> were they?  ISTR there were various corner cases that would still get
> your task  blocking while doing an aio submission.

They're suppose to not block except for memory allocation, that is the 
definition of how the aio api is supposed to work.  The patches to fix 
that always seem to get met with a "woe! complexity!" response.  I'm of 
the opinion now that the only way to get the aio api to a usable state 
of implementation is to use threads so that the impact on the rest of 
the kernel isn't there for anything other than fast paths.

		-ben
-- 
"Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once." -- John Wheeler