[Quickfix-developers] Faster logons

[Brian E. <azz...@ya...>]

I have a new C# FIX application that requires a manual login/logout
process. Users need to be able to login to my test server and logout
multiple times, so I have two big buttons to do this.

The problem is that logging in takes a very long time. The C# version
of the library seems to have problems with repeated calls to the
threaded initiator's start() and stop() methods, so I start() the
initiator at application start up and immediately logout the created
session (during the onCreate() callback). I then use the session's
logon() and logout() methods to log the session on and off.

Logging off is nearly instantaneous, but logging on is generally slow.
Looking at the code, both methods simply set the value of m_enabled on
the session. Presumably, logging off is quick because next() is
constantly being called while a session is active and the m_enabled
flag change is being picked up quickly.

Logging on, however, can take upwards of 30 seconds. Again, this is
presumably because while a session is logged out there is some sort of
timeout or delay between checks of the m_enabled flag. Considering that
prior to each login, I see the "Connecting to [IP address] on port
[#]", it would appear it is some sort of delay prior to spawning the
socketThread (the first time) and then the use of m_reconnectInterval
and process_sleep (subsequent times).

Aside from fixing the .NET code so that initiator start/stop cycles
don't cause the code to hang, is there any way of speeding up the logon
process? My sneaking suspicion is no, but it doesn't hurt to ask...

I would also suggest that the use of process_sleep is a bad idea -
whenever I need to code a sleep-type function, I use a mutex and a
WaitForSingleObject with the sleep time as the timeout. That way, I can
interrupt the sleep (by triggering the mutex) if the reason for the
sleep has gone away (or so I don't have to wait 30 seconds to bring my
application down if I'm sleeping). Makes things much more responsive.

- Brian Erst
Thynk Software, Inc.