Does epoll(), do its job in O(1)?
Solution 1:
This makes sense once you look for ep_find
. I only spent a few minutes with it and I see ep_find
is only called by epoll_ctl
.
So indeed, when you add the descriptors (EPOLL_CTL_ADD
) that costly operation is performed. BUT when doing the real work (epoll_wait
) it isn't. You only add the descriptors in the beginning.
In conclusion, it's not enough to ask the complexity of epoll
, since there is no epoll
system call. You want the individual complexities of epoll_ctl
, epoll_wait
etc.
Other stuff
There are other reasons to avoid select
and use epoll
. When using select, you don't know how many descriptors need attention. So you must keep track of the biggest and loop to it.
rc = select(...);
/* check rc */
for (s = 0; s <= maxfd; s++) {
if (FD_ISSET(s)) {
/* ... */
}
}
Now with epoll
it's a lot cleaner:
nfds = epoll_wait(epollfd, events, MAX_EVENTS, -1);
/* check nfds */
for (n = 0; n < nfds; ++n) {
/* events[n].data.fd needs attention */
}