The set_latency function is the perfect example of a feature that should
be implemented as an ioctl: it's only implemented by a single driver,
and the functionality is also highly platform specific.
This new ioctl function allows to perform I/O stream specific requests
through a generic interface. This provides an easy way to extend the I/O
interface with some driver specific features, without having to modify
the public api.
The Linux implementation is very straighforward and just a lightweight
wrapper around the select function. But the Windows implementation is
much more complex, because the Windows event notification mechanism
behaves very different:
The WaitCommEvent function does not support a timeout and is always a
blocking call. The only way to implement a timeout is to use
asynchronous I/O (or overlapped I/O as it's called in the Windows API),
to run the operation in the background. This requires some additional
book keeping to keep track of the pending background operation.
The event mechanism is also edge triggered instead of level triggered,
and reading the event with the WaitCommEvent function clears the pending
event. Therefore, the state of the input buffer needs to be checked with
the ClearCommError function before and after the WaitCommEvent call.
The check before is necessary in case the event is already cleared by a
previous WaitCommEvent call, while there is still data present in the
input buffer. In this case, WaitCommEvent should not be called at all,
because it would wait until more data arrives.
The check afterwards is necessary in case WaitCommEvent reports a
pending event, while the data in the input buffer has already been
consumed. In this case, the current event must be ignored and
WaitCommEvent needs to be called again, to wait for the next event.
