Inter-Process Communication: A Reference Manual

Abstract

This manual is a programmer’s guide to using the Inter-Process Communication (IPC) library, a plat- form-independent package for distributed network- based message passing. IPC provides facilities for both publish/subscribe and client/server type com- munications. It can efficiently pass complicated da- ta structures between different machines, and even between different languages (currently, C and Lisp). IPC can run in either centralized-routed mode or direct point-to-point mode. With centralized routing, message traffic can be logged automatical- ly, and there are tools available for visualizing and analyzing the message traffic.