This package provides low-level bindings to Windows Sockets 2 (Winsock2) API with proper integration into GHC's I/O manager. It enables truly asynchronous network operations on Windows by utilizing I/O Completion Ports (IOCP) and Windows socket extension functions. Additionally, it supports asynchronous socket operations on Linux using epoll.
The package is named winasyncsocket because it was initially developed to provide asynchronous socket I/O on Windows. However, it also supports Linux (via epoll), and will additionally support macOS/BSD (via kqueue), and the name is kept for historical reasons.
- Direct integration with GHC's I/O manager via IOCP (Windows) and epoll (Linux)
- Support for both IPv4 and IPv6
- Asynchronous TCP operations (accept, connect, send, receive)
- Raw access to Winsock2 API on Windows and epoll on Linux when needed
While some function names match those in the "network" package, this package is not a drop-in replacement. The API is designed specifically for Windows and Linux asynchronous I/O models, which differ significantly from POSIX systems.
- Support for macOS/BSD using kqueue
The package is in early development and needs:
- More extensive testing
- Documentation improvements
- Additional platform-specific socket features
- Performance benchmarks
Contributions in any of these areas are very welcome. Please feel free to submit issues and pull requests.