Approaches of interprocess communication

[Ben Finney]

"exhuma.twn" <exhuma at gmail.com> writes:

> Supposing you have two separate processes running on the same box,
> what approach would you suggest to communicate between those two
> processes.
>
> Let me list the ones I know of:
>
> * Sockets
>    Advantage: Supported per se in nearly every programming language
> without even the need to install additional packages

This would be my choice. But first, set up a well-defined *protocol*
(preferably based on text commands) for the two processes to use for
communication; don't have each of them being intricately aware of each
others' implementation.

>    Disadvantage: Lot's of code to write, and it's kind of silly to
> communicate via TCP/IP if the processes run on the same machine.

You can cut down on the amount of code by using the standard library
"cmd" module to handle a command interface, hooking the stdin and
stdout of the commandline handler to the socket.

If you're already thinking about cooperating processes, you should
make them network-neutral anyway from the start.

Here's what _The Art of Unix Programming_ has to say on the topic of
text protocols:

    <URL:http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch05s01.html>

and IPC tactics for peer processes:

    <URL:http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/ch07s07.html>

-- 
 \        "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though |
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Ben Finney