On Mon, 19 Dec 2005 19:43:00 -0500, Cliff Green wrote
The problem with the above apporach is that most code will end up using the global demuxer ...
We had this exact problem with a large application built atop ACE. Within ACE, there are a few areas where one can refer to "/the/ reactor" rather than "/a/ reactor" or "/this/ reactor ...
I really dislike the ACE singleton interface in the Reactor (and in some other classes), for the same reasons already described. In particular, an application might use a library that internally uses the Asio singleton demuxer - now the application's use of the singleton demuxer might conflict. This dislike is based on real-life use cases (with ACE), btw. Please don't add a singleton demuxer interface.
One more voice against this...I've had similar issues with singletons in ACE and other places. There would have to be extreme justification to introduce a singleton into the asio interface. Small simplification for end users isn't enough for me. Peter's points are right on the mark... Jeff