[fpc-pascal] Inter-process communication, a cautionary tale

[michael.vancanneyt at wisa.be]

On Wed, 18 Jul 2012, Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote:

> michael.vancanneyt at wisa.be wrote:
>> On Wed, 18 Jul 2012, Mark Morgan Lloyd wrote:
>> 
>>> I was reminded of this when somebody was asking about portable signalling 
>>> APIs the other day, but I think it's also relevant to discussion of e.g. 
>>> how to pass a keyword to a help viewer.
>>> 
>>> I am obviously aware of the fact that FPC has an IPC unit which uses a 
>>> temporary file, although I have always assumed that that was more to 
>>> support targets like DOS that had absolutely no concept of pipes or 
>>> sockets. But perhaps it really is the safest choice in all cases.
>> 
>> In which unit did you find this ?
>> 
>> The IPC unit in FPC uses a unix socket  on unix, and on windows a Windows 
>> window handle to copy data.
>
> I believe I'm thinking of TSimpleIPC etc. My apologies if I've got this 
> wrong, or if what I read was outdated "Ignorance of the law is no defense").

No need to apologize, I'm just curious where you got your info from. 
The implementation has been the same since day 1, which means your 
statement puzzles me.

So instead of re-inventing the wheel, maybe have a closer look again at the
standard IPC mechanisms.

Michael.