Breaking ReadFile() blocking - Named Pipe (Windows API)

Question

To simplify, this is a situation where a NamedPipe SERVER is waiting for a NamedPipe CLIENT to write to the pipe (using WriteFile())

The Windows API that is blocking

Answer 1

Take a look on CancelSynchronousIo

Marks pending synchronous I/O operations that are issued by the specified thread as canceled.

And CancelIo/CancelIoEx:

To cancel all pending asynchronous I/O operations, use either:

CancelIo — this function only cancels operations issued by the calling thread for the specified file handle.

CancelIoEx — this function cancels all operations issued by the threads for the specified file handle.

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa363794(VS.85).aspx
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa365467(VS.85).aspx