[Python-Dev] Fw: SocketServer and makefile() [from comp.lang.python]

[Guido van Rossum]

> > > Dunno why the unbuffered reading would be slow. I'd think it would still
> > > read large chunks at a time when you request it.
> > 
> > System call overhead?  I had the same complaint about Windows, where
> > apparently winsock makes you pay more of a performance penalty than
> > Unix does in the same case.
> 
> Shouldn't be. There should still be an rfile.read(1000) in that example app
> (with the big transfers). That read() should be quite fast -- the buffering
> should have almost no effect.
> 
> So... what is the underlying problem?
> 
> [ IOW, there are two issues: the sock vs file thing; and why rfile is so
>   darn slow; I have no insights on the latter. ]

Should, shouldn't...

It's a quality of implementation issue in stdio.  If stdio, when
seeing a large read on an unbuffered file, doesn't do something smart
but instead calls getc() for each character, that would explain this.
It's dumb, but not illegal.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.pythonlabs.com/~guido/)