On Mon, 1 Feb 2010, Ragnar Lonn wrote:

> I think I understand, and without being very knowledgeable about all the
> details my gut reaction is that method A sounds like a solution that is a
> lot more solid.
>
> Your comment that "even you have used that change in handle counter..." is
> not a very good argument in favor of method B, and you even say so
> implicitly when you also state that "the only good way to find the end of an
> individual transfer is calling curl_multi_info_read()"
>
> The running_handles counter is simple to use, yes, but relying on it to tell
> you state changes does seem like over-using the feature. And don't get me
> wrong, I'm the laziest programmer alive and I'm pretty sure my code will
> always look worse than yours. Give me an API that allows me to make
> shortcuts and I will! That's why I think it's a bad idea to allow even the
> possibility. If running_handles is not a good way to detect state changes,
> and maybe even not 100% accurate at telling the current state of things,
> then I would degrade it to an "informational" feature without guarantees,
> and document it as such. If the official stance (and the docs) say that this
> feature should not be used for anything serious, then even I would probably
> avoid that kind of behaviour.

Thanks a lot for your feedback.

Yes, I'm quite sure my alternative (A) is the only sane way forward and I plan
to get that committed soon.

I'll also revisit the documentation for the 'running_handles' to make sure we
document that properly and that we push for using curl_multi_info_read() to
accurately find completed transfers - successful or failed.

I will probably not work on an optimized curl_multi_info_read() myself until
after 7.20.0 and I would very much welcome help with that part. I think some
of you guys using an insane amount of easy handles in a single multi handle
can benefit with measureable amount from it. Right now, each call to
curl_multi_info_read() scans over ALL connected easy handles to see if there's
a message to return.

It should instead feature a simple list with easy handles.

-- 
  / daniel.haxx.se
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