The most common input/output (I/O) model used in Linux is synchronous I/O. After a request is made in this model, the application blocks until the request is satisfied. This is a great paradigm because the calling application requires no central processing unit (CPU) while it awaits the completion of the I/O request. But in some cases there's a need to overlap an I/O request with other processing. The Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) asynchronous I/O (AIO) application program interface (API) provides this capability. In this article, get an overview of the API and see how to use it.</DL><p></DL><p>
