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You are right, not polling the io_services from the main thread makes the f() calls run in the other threads as intended. In that case is there a way to check from the main thread if the io_services finished executing the posted handlers (some kind of a peek())?
The run command will return if you get rid of the two work objects. Then, you could just wait for the threads to join.
I have a program where there are several parallel io_threads and I want to run two distinct library functions in each io_service first thing an io_service is started and last thing before an io_service is stopped. These functions are posted from the main thread. My problem is with the function that is to be executed last: how can I wait for that to be executed before stopping the io_service and joining the thread? Calling poll()/dispatch() from the main thread is not an option, it seems.
Look into writing a custom service object. I think that the logging example is a good place to start. There is an entry point that gets called when the io_service is being stopped. ~Dan