Using boost::asio thread pool for general purpose tasks

Question

In this blog I found a pretty neat example on how to create a simple thread pool using boost::asio. I basically want to use it like this:

#include 

        

Answer 1

I wrote a ThreadPool class with boost asio. It works and it is clean &clear enough to understand easily. ThreadPool with boost asio

Answer 2

Boost.Asio is not solely for network programming, see the reference documentation. It has extensive support for things like

• time based operations (deadline_timer)
• signal handling
• platform specific operations such as posix streams and Windows handles

I've used it for other purposes in several applications as well. One example being a thread pool to service potentially long running blocking database operations while providing an asynchronous interface for the application. Boost.Asio really is a very powerful library. Using it for a general purpose thread pool as you propose can work just fine.

Answer 3

I don't see any reason not to do things this way. As a benefit, you can use things like deadline timers which are built on top of boost::asio.