boost::asio and socket ownership

Question

I've two classes (Negotiator, Client), both has their own boost::asio::ip::tcp::socket. Is there a way to transfer socket object to Client after negotiation is finished. I'm looking forward to do something like that:

 boost::asio::ip::tcp::socket sock1(io);
 //...
 boost::asio::ip::tcp::socket sock2;
 sock2.assign(sock1); 

This operation must guarantee that the connection won't be closed when sock1 is destroyed.

Grevera

Answer 1

I think that you could:

• obtain sock1's native handle with the native() member function
• dup() (or WSADuplicateSocket()) sock1's native handle
• pass the dup()-ed handle to sock2 with the assing() member function

However:

• I'm not sure as I never tried that
• If you want to transfer (instead of sharing) the socket from Negotiator to Client, Dan's suggestion of using dynamic allocation is probably simpler, using unique_ptr (or auto_ptr)

Alter

Answer 2

Create the socket on the heap (new), and pass the pointer from the negotiator to the client.

Tannertannery

This doesn't help in the case of accepting a plain TCP socket and then wanting to turn it into an ssl socket. Then you truly need to pull the internal socket out of the first and stick it into the second. – Substrate

Answer 3

As of the current version of Boost, you would now get the handle with

boost::asio::ip::tcp::socket::my_socket;
auto my_handle = my_socket.native_handle();

instead of the old native() member function.

Recusant