Sender: rich AT delorie DOT com
Message-ID: <39140391.371D9C88@bigfoot.com>
Date: Sat, 06 May 2000 12:35:45 +0100
From: Richard Dawe <richdawe AT bigfoot DOT com>
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To: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: Idea: IPC and child knowledge for e. g. kill
References: <200005061015 DOT MAA24027 AT father DOT ludd DOT luth DOT se>
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Reply-To: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com

Hello.

Martin Str|mberg wrote:
> Would it be feasable to implement IPC and child knowledge on WINDOZE
> through socket communications?

Which type of sockets? PF_INET or PF_UNIX? libsocket can do Unix domain
sockets on all Windows platforms, I think (not actually tested on Windows
3.x, NT), in the latest snapshot - see the libsocket development home
page:

http://www.phekda.freeserve.co.uk/richdawe/lsck/lsck_dev.htm

libsocket provides Unix domain sockets by emulating a stream socket by
running two LAN Manager mailslots (*) (two unidirectional IPC channels)
with a non-reliable communications protocol. I assumed that mailslots are
reliable, but now I don't believe they are. It should be possible to
extend the protocol to a TCP-ish one with acknowledgement.

(*) So it might even work on DOS too.

I haven't yet thought of a way to pass file descriptors between DOS boxes.
I think this is impossible with normal file I/O. It may be possible with
socket file descriptors, though.

Certainly, if child programs have some globally unique identifier, Unix
domain sockets could pass the knowledge to the parent, across DOS boxes.

IIRC Alain Magloire and I had a fairly long discussion about how
libsocket's Unix domain sockets work and passing fd's between DOS boxes.
You might want to take a look at the libsocket mailing list archives from
the middle of last year - April-June I think:

http://www.phekda.freeserve.co.uk/richdawe/lsck/lsck_ml.htm

HTH, bye,

-- 
Richard Dawe
richdawe AT bigfoot DOT com ICQ 47595498 http://www.bigfoot.com/~richdawe/