This patch equips the 'Block::Connection' with a framework API for the
implementation of robust block-session clients that perform block I/O in
an asynchronous fashion.
An application-defined 'JOB' type, inherited from 'Connection::Job',
encapsulates the application's context information associated with a
block operation.
The lifecycle of the jobs is implemented by the 'Connection' and driven
by the application's invokation of 'Connection::update_jobs'. The
'update_jobs' mechanism takes three hook functions as arguments, which
implement the applications-defined policy for producing and consuming
data, and for the completion of jobs.
Issue #3283
This patch removes the blocking Block::Session::sync RPC function and
adds the asynchronous operations SYNC and TRIM to the block session's
packet-stream interface.
Even though the patch adjusts all block components to the interface
change, the components keep the former blocking handling of sync
internally for now because of the design of the 'Block::Driver'
interface. This old interface is not worth changing. We should instead
migrate the block servers step by step to the new
'Block::Request_stream' API.
Fixes#3274
This patch splits the 'Request' definition into smaller types that are
suitable for the client-side API too.
The new 'Operation' type comprises the block operation's type (opcode)
and the operation's arguments (block number, block count).
The former 'Request::operation_defined' is now 'Operation::valid'.
The 'Request' aggregates an 'Operation', which changes its object
layout.
Note that this commit relaxes the bit-precise definition of 'Request' to
facilitate the use of 'unsigned long' where appropriate, in particular
for the request tag (which should correspond to an 'Id_space::Id'). The
originally bit-precise definition was pursued to allow the sharing of
the 'Request' type between SPARK and C++ code. However, it turns out
that defining a native type in each language and a (set of) converting
constructors is a more natural approach.
Issue #3283
