buffered asynchronous file I/O on linux

Question

I am looking for the most efficient way to do asynchronous file I/O on linux.

The POSIX glibc implementation uses threads in userland.

The native aio kernel

Answer 1

The material seems old -- well, it is old -- because it's been around for long and, while by no means trivial, is well understood. A solution you can lift is published in W. Richard Stevens's superb and unparalleled book (read "bible"). The book is the rare treasure that is clear, concise, and complete: every page gives real and immediate value:

    Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment

Two other such, also by Stevens, are the first two volumes of his Unix Network Programming collection:

   Volume 1: The Sockets Networking API (with Fenner and Rudoff) and
   Volume 2: Interprocess Communications

I can't imagine being without these three fundamental books; I'm dumbstruck when I find someone who hasn't heard of them.

Still more of Steven's books, just as precious:

   TCP/IP Illustrated, Vol. 1: The Protocols