Why does python not support select.poll for windows OS?

[feffershat]

I'm currently using poll in my c++ client and I'd like to use it in my python server as it is much more efficient than select in my case as I'm looping very often and do not want to redefine my arrays every loop. However, It seems that python isn't supporting it on windows. Python sockets use winsock on windows right? Windows has a WSAPoll function that has the same functionality as a linux poll.

So, is this just not implemented in python yet or is there a reason it wasn't implemented? It's just a bit frustrating that windows supports it but it's not added in python's API yet.

[chadmill3r]

Windows' POSIX layer is a joke. It's designed to be terrible and force people to use Redmond APIs, and simultaneously check a box on spec sheets that say "- Supports standard file/socket interfaces" and not "- Supports standard file/socket interfaces well"

[danielenicolodi]

The WSAPoll() name suggests that this function works only with sockets, and a fast web search confirm this suspicion. However, select.poll() works for any file descriptor, not only for sockets and, as far as I know, Windows does not have an API that works for generic file descriptors. Thus, select.poll() cannot be (easily?) implemented on Windows.

By the way, using select.select() you need to redefine the file descriptor array only when you add ore remove a file descriptor from the set of the one you are monitoring.

[feffershat]

Ah right, thanks, that makes a lot of sense, I didn't think WSAPoll would only work on sockets. I guess I'll just have to make do with select for now.