...one of the most highly
regarded and expertly designed C++ library projects in the
world.
— Herb Sutter and Andrei
Alexandrescu, C++
Coding Standards
Start an asynchronous operation to read a certain amount of data from a stream.
template< typename AsyncReadStream, typename MutableBufferSequence, typename CompletionCondition, typename ReadHandler> void async_read( AsyncReadStream & s, const MutableBufferSequence & buffers, CompletionCondition completion_condition, ReadHandler handler);
This function is used to asynchronously read a certain number of bytes of data from a stream. The function call always returns immediately. The asynchronous operation will continue until one of the following conditions is true:
The stream from which the data is to be read. The type must support the AsyncReadStream concept.
One or more buffers into which the data will be read. The sum of the buffer sizes indicates the maximum number of bytes to read from the stream. Although the buffers object may be copied as necessary, ownership of the underlying memory blocks is retained by the caller, which must guarantee that they remain valid until the handler is called.
The function object to be called to determine whether the read operation is complete. The signature of the function object must be:
std::size_t completion_condition( // Result of latest async_read_some operation. const boost::system::error_code& error, // Number of bytes transferred so far. std::size_t bytes_transferred );
A return value of 0 indicates that the read operation is complete. A non-zero return value indicates the maximum number of bytes to be read on the next call to the stream's async_read_some function.
The handler to be called when the read operation completes. Copies will be made of the handler as required. The function signature of the handler must be:
void handler( const boost::system::error_code& error, // Result of operation. std::size_t bytes_transferred // Number of bytes copied into the // buffers. If an error occurred, // this will be the number of // bytes successfully transferred // prior to the error. );
Regardless of whether the asynchronous operation completes immediately or not, the handler will not be invoked from within this function. Invocation of the handler will be performed in a manner equivalent to using boost::asio::io_service::post().
To read into a single data buffer use the buffer function as follows:
boost::asio::async_read(s, boost::asio::buffer(data, size), boost::asio::transfer_at_least(32), handler);
See the buffer documentation for information on reading into multiple buffers in one go, and how to use it with arrays, boost::array or std::vector.