Overlapped Operations

Overlapped operations enable a thread to execute a time-consuming I/O operation in the background, leaving the thread free to perform other tasks. To enable overlapped I/O operations on a communications resource, the thread must specify the FILE_FLAG_OVERLAPPED flag in the CreateFile function when the handle is opened. To execute the ReadFile or WriteFile function as an overlapped operation, the calling thread must specify a pointer to an OVERLAPPED structure.The OVERLAPPED structure must contain a handle to a manual-reset (not an auto-reset) event object. The system sets the state of the event object to not-signaled when a call to the I/O function returns before the operation has been completed. The system sets the state of the event object to signaled when the operation has been completed. The thread uses a wait function to check the current state of the event object or to wait for its state to be signaled.

The ReadFileEx and WriteFileEx functions can be performed only as overlapped operations. The calling thread specifies a pointer to the FileIOCompletionRoutine function, which is executed when the overlapped operation is completed. The completion routine is executed only if the calling thread performs an alertable operation.

For more information about event objects, wait functions, alertable waits, and completion routines, see Synchronization.