> EDIT: Also IIRC when using select() writes can still block your thread... You should only ever use select() with file descriptors in non-blocking mode. Other

> EDIT: Also IIRC when using select() writes can still block your thread... You should only ever use select() with file descriptors in non-blocking mode. Otherwise there's an inherent race condition with any readiness signaling mechanism along these lines. But yes, the read/write syscalls are not asynchronous, and select() on regular files are required by POSIX to always be signaled as ready for reading and writing. Basically, descriptor readiness as per select() does not mean and has never meant that the thread won't be temporarily descheduled and put on an IO wait queue. Its semantics are only a useful fit for things like UARTs, sockets, pipes, etc. By the way, even with asynchronous/overlapped IO on Windows, there are cases where asynchronous reads/writes on files will effectively be synchronous, especially in the common case of file-extending writes. See https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/156932 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/156932 for details. The only work-around I know of is to use SetFileValidData to pre-extend the file, but that requires increased privileges and so is not often feasible (and usually not worth it compared to queuing the writes to a dedicated IO thread).