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Inter-process communication (IPC) is a mechanism that allows the exchange of data between processes. By providing a user with a set of programming interfaces, IPC helps a programmer organize the activities among different processes. IPC allows one application to control another application, thereby enabling data sharing without interference.
IPC enables data communication by allowing processes to use segments, semaphores, and other methods to share memory and information. IPC facilitates efficient message transfer between processes. The idea of IPC is based on Task Control Architecture (TCA). It is a flexible technique that can send and receive variable length arrays, data structures, and lists. It has the capability of using publish/subscribe and client/server data-transfer paradigms while supporting a wide range of operating systems and languages.
Techopedia Explains Inter Process Communication
The IPC mechanism can be classified into pipes, first in, first out (FIFO), and shared memory. Pipes were introduced in the UNIX operating system. In this mechanism, the data flow is unidirectional. A pipe can be imagined as a hose pipe in which the data enters through one end and flows out from the other end. A pipe is generally created by invoking the pipe system call, which in turn generates a pair of file descriptors. Descriptors are usually created to point to a pipe node. One of the main features of pipes is that the data flowing through a pipe is transient, which means data can be read from the read descriptor only once. If the data is written into the write descriptor, the data can be read only in the order in which the data was written.
The working principle of FIFO is very similar to that of pipes. The data flow in FIFO is unidirectional and is identified by access points. The difference between the two is that FIFO is identified by an access point, which is a file within the file system, whereas pipes are identified by an access point.
