Windows CE .NET Interprocess Communication

By Avi Kcholi - The Israeli Embedded User Group Manager:

Abstract

Windows CE .NET provides a rich set of synchronization objects; however, interprocess communications (IPC) or interthread communications (referred to collectively as intertask communications) are provided only by point-to-point message queue. This is a user-defined queue that acts as a conduit for passing messages between a writer and a reader. An embedded operating system requires special attention to space and performance, so the Windows CE .NET point-to-point message queue may act as a pipe mechanism for interprocess communications. The majority of embedded real-time operating systems (RTOSs) have an array of intertask communications, such as mailboxes and pipes. Because a point-to-point message queue can be regarded as some sort of pipe, an implementation of a one-way IPC mechanism (a mailbox) is proposed.

There is a proposal to create this mechanism as a service that is loaded and managed by Services Manager. This design strategy will offer lightweight interprocess and interthread communications that are wrapped in a very small package. It will conserve memory and and provide extremely fast performance.

-Update:Here is the link to the source file

Comments

• Anonymous
  April 22, 2004
  It's a good article but how do I get the full source code for which snippets are shown in this article?
• Anonymous
  June 10, 2004
  Do you know if is it planned to add this functionality to compact framework?