Sockets and multithreading - doubt

[Raj Prathap]

All, I have a doubt whether two different threads can be working on a same socket descriptor(handle in windows terminology)? Please go through the following scenario: We have one device which supports TCP/IP: 1. Responds to the requests 2. Sends notifications, incase any events Can I have two threads one for continuesly wait to receive the notifications & response and another for sending the requests to the panel? Could someone please provide (link will suffice)a good design for this class. Best Regards, Pratap

[led mike]

Raj Prathap wrote:

Can I have two threads one for continuesly wait to receive the notifications & response and another for sending the requests

You can read from the socket in one thread and write to the socket in a different thread. I think that is what you mean and Yes you can.

[Matthew Faithfull]

Read with one thread and write with another is fine with one proviso. If you're unfortunate enough to be using MFC Sockets then don't pass the handles (Which are actaully Window Handles) between threads lest they suddenly and magically become invalid. It can be done but you'll need to root around in the MS Docs to find how to do it safely. If you're writing this sort of thing you might want to check out IO Completion Ports, a bit mind bending but they can make multithreaded socket apps a lot slicker. :)

Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.