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Inter-process communication

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For other uses, see IPC.

In computing, inter-process communication (IPC) is a set of methods for the exchange of data among multiple threads in one or more processes. Processes may be running on one or more computers connected by a network. IPC methods are divided into methods for message passing, synchronization, shared memory, and remote procedure calls (RPC). The method of IPC used may vary based on the bandwidth and latency of communication between the threads, and the type of data being communicated.

There are several reasons for providing an environment that allows process cooperation:

IPC may also be referred to as inter-thread communication and inter-application communication.

The combination of IPC with the address space concept is the foundation for address space independence/isolation.[1]

Main IPC methods

Method Short Description Provided by (operating systems or other environments)
File A record stored on disk
that can be accessed by name
by any process		 Most operating systems
Signal A system message sent from
one process to another, not
usually used to store information but
instead give commands.		 Most operating systems; some systems, such as Windows, implement signals in only

the C run-time library and provide no support for their use as an IPC method [citation needed]

Socket A data stream sent over
a network interface, either to a different process
on the same computer or to another computer		 Most operating systems
Message queue An anonymous data stream
similar to the pipe, but
stores and retrieves information in packets.		 Most operating systems
Pipe A two-way data stream interfaced through
standard input and output and is read
character by character.		 All POSIX systems, Windows
Named pipe A pipe implemented through a file
on the file system instead of
standard input and output.		 All POSIX systems, Windows
Semaphore A simple structure that synchronizes threads
or processes acting on shared resources.		 All POSIX systems, Windows
Shared memory Multiple processes given access to the
same memory, allowing all to change it
and read changes made by other processes.		 All POSIX systems, Windows
Message passing
(shared nothing)		 Similar to the message queue. Used in MPI paradigm, Java RMI, CORBA, DDS, MSMQ, MailSlots, QNX, others
Memory-mapped file A file mapped to RAM and can be modified
by changing memory addresses directly instead
of outputting to a stream,
shares same benefits as a standard file.		 All POSIX systems, Windows

Implementations

There are several APIs which may be used for IPC. A number of platform independent APIs include the following:

The following are platform or programming language specific APIs:

See also

References

  1. ^ Jochen Liedtke. On µ-Kernel Construction, Proc. 15th ACM Symposium on Operating System Principles (SOSP), December 1995
  • Stevens, Richard. UNIX Network Programming, Volume 2, Second Edition: Interprocess Communications. Prentice Hall, 1999. ISBN 0-13-081081-9
  • U. Ramachandran, M. Solomon, M. Vernon Hardware support for interprocess communication Proceedings of the 14th annual international symposium on Computer architecture. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Pages: 178 - 188. Year of Publication: 1987 ISBN 0-8186-0776-9

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