Inter-process communication

[Phil Hunt]

Say I have two separate Python programs (i.e. two separate Unix processes
running the Python interpteter with a *.py file), and I want them to
talk to each other, how do I do it?

I have two applications in mind.

One is where one Python program is running continually, and another is
started up when an email is received -- the second program asks the
first one for some information, then formats the results and sends 
them to the person email was received from. (The 2nd program will
probably be started up by procmail, & is run whenever an email is 
received).

The other application is where one program is running all the time 
and contains an object database. Other programs may access this database,
both reading and writing data. The first program's job is to act
as a database management system -- i.e. to handle issues like when one
program wants to read the DB while another wants to write it, & issues
to do with saving the database.

-- 
Phil Hunt....philh at vision25.demon.co.uk