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Inter-process communication

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]

Contents

Main IPC methods

MethodProvided by (operating systems or other environments)
FileMost operating systems
SignalMost 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]
SocketMost operating systems
Message queueMost operating systems
PipeAll POSIX systems, Windows
Named pipeAll POSIX systems, Windows
SemaphoreAll POSIX systems, Windows
Shared memoryAll POSIX systems, Windows
Message passing
(shared nothing)		Used in MPI paradigm, Java RMI, CORBA, MSMQ, MailSlots, QNX, others
Memory-mapped fileAll 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

External links

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