The POSIX standard does not specify how the AIO functions are implemented. They could be system calls, but it is also possible to emulate them at userlevel.
At the time of writing, the available implementation is a user-level implementation which uses threads for handling the enqueued requests. While this implementation requires making some decisions about limitations, hard limitations are something best avoided in the GNU C Library. Therefore, the GNU C Library provides a means for tuning the AIO implementation according to the individual use.
This data type is used to pass the configuration or tunable parameters
to the implementation. The program has to initialize the members of
this struct and pass it to the implementation using the aio_init
function.
int aio_threadsThis member specifies the maximal number of threads which may be used at any one time.
int aio_numThis number provides an estimate on the maximal number of simultaneously enqueued requests.
int aio_locksUnused.
int aio_usedbaUnused.
int aio_debugUnused.
int aio_numusersUnused.
int aio_reserved[2]Unused.
void aio_init (const struct aioinit *init) ¶Preliminary: | MT-Safe | AS-Unsafe lock | AC-Unsafe lock | See POSIX Safety Concepts.
This function must be called before any other AIO function. Calling it is completely voluntary, as it is only meant to help the AIO implementation perform better.
Before calling aio_init, the members of a variable of
type struct aioinit must be initialized. Then a reference to
this variable is passed as the parameter to aio_init which itself
may or may not pay attention to the hints.
The function has no return value and no error cases are defined. It is an extension which follows a proposal from the SGI implementation in Irix 6. It is not covered by POSIX.1b or Unix98.