[/
 / Copyright (c) 2003-2025 Christopher M. Kohlhoff (chris at kohlhoff dot com)
 /
 / Distributed under the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. (See accompanying
 / file LICENSE_1_0.txt or copy at http://www.boost.org/LICENSE_1_0.txt)
 /]

[section:child_agents Child Agents]

The asynchronous operations within an agent may themselves be implemented in
terms of child agents.[footnote In Boost.Asio these asynchronous operations are
referred to as ['composed operations].] As far as the parent agent is
concerned, it is waiting for the completion of a single asynchronous operation.
The asynchronous operations that constitute the child agent run in sequence,
and when the final completion handler runs the parent agent is resumed.

[$boost_asio/async_child_agent_chain.png [width 802px]]

As with individual asynchronous operations, the asynchronous operations built
on child agents must release their temporary resources prior to calling the
completion handler. We may also think of these child agents as resources that
end their lifetimes before the completion handler is invoked.

When an asynchronous operation creates a child agent, it may propagate[footnote
Typically, by specialising the associator trait and forwarding to the outer
completion handler.] the associated characteristics of the parent agent to the
child agent. These associated characteristics may then be recursively
propagated through further layers of asynchronous operations and child agents.
This stacking of asynchronous operations replicates another property of
synchronous operations.

[table
  [
    [Property of synchronous operations]
    [Equivalent property of asynchronous operations]
  ]
  [
    [
      Compositions of synchronous operations may be refactored to use child
      functions that run on the same thread (i.e. are simply called) without
      altering functionality.
    ]
    [
      Asynchronous agents may be refactored to use asynchronous operations and
      child agents that share the associated characteristics of the parent
      agent, without altering functionality.
    ]
  ]
]

Finally, some asynchronous operations may be implemented in terms of multiple
child agents that run concurrently. In this case, the asynchronous operation
may choose to selectively propagate the associated characteristics of the
parent agent.

[endsect]
