www.digitalmars.com         C & C++   DMDScript  

digitalmars.D.learn - Named Pipes IPC in D for windows and linux ?

reply Tarun Ramakrishna <lenkite gmail.com> writes:
Hi,

Is there anything in the standard library to do named pipes IPC in
both windows and linux ? I am not necessarily looking for a unified
API, anything that will allow me to setup named pipes on either OS and
read/write on them will do.

Thanks,
Tarun
Feb 27 2011
next sibling parent reply Johannes Pfau <spam example.com> writes:
Tarun Ramakrishna wrote:

Hi,

Is there anything in the standard library to do named pipes IPC in
both windows and linux ? I am not necessarily looking for a unified
API, anything that will allow me to setup named pipes on either OS and
read/write on them will do.

Thanks,
Tarun


I'm not sure but I think there's nothing like that in the standard
library. The only thing I can think of is that the new std.process
(https://github.com/kyllingstad/phobos/blob/new-std-process/std/process.d)
uses pipes for IPC (anonymous pipes though, not named pipes) :-(
=20
at least for posix druntime exports the c api, so you could write a
wrapper for that. (The pipe functions and types are in
core.sys.posix.sys.stat.d (mknod, S_IFIFO))

--=20
Johannes Pfau
Feb 27 2011
parent Tarun Ramakrishna <lenkite gmail.com> writes:
Hi Johannes,

Thanks! I located mkfifo in 'core.sys.posix.sys.stat'. I couldn't find
anything for named pipes in the standard library, but there is a
Windows API project in dsource and the module 'win32.winbase' has
declarations for 'CreateNamedPipe', etc. I guess this will do.

Best Regards,
Tarun


On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 3:00 AM, Johannes Pfau <spam example.com> wrote:

 Tarun Ramakrishna wrote:

Hi,

Is there anything in the standard library to do named pipes IPC in
both windows and linux ? I am not necessarily looking for a unified
API, anything that will allow me to setup named pipes on either OS and
read/write on them will do.

Thanks,
Tarun


 I'm not sure but I think there's nothing like that in the standard
 library. The only thing I can think of is that the new std.process
 (https://github.com/kyllingstad/phobos/blob/new-std-process/std/process.d)
 uses pipes for IPC (anonymous pipes though, not named pipes) :-(

 at least for posix druntime exports the c api, so you could write a
 wrapper for that. (The pipe functions and types are in
 core.sys.posix.sys.stat.d (mknod, S_IFIFO))

 --
 Johannes Pfau
Feb 27 2011
prev sibling parent reply "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy yahoo.com> writes:
On Sun, 27 Feb 2011 13:53:05 -0500, Tarun Ramakrishna <lenkite gmail.com>  
wrote:


 Is there anything in the standard library to do named pipes IPC in
 both windows and linux ? I am not necessarily looking for a unified
 API, anything that will allow me to setup named pipes on either OS and
 read/write on them will do.


Any C functions (including system calls) are available.  You are free to  
write your own API, and maybe it will be included in Phobos!

-Steve
Feb 28 2011
parent reply Tarun Ramakrishna <lenkite gmail.com> writes:
Hi Steven,

Yes, I have now understood that.

Is there a guidelines/best practices page somewhere that describes how
should a good library be coded for acceptance into the standard
library:  patterns and conventions, etc ? I am very new to D, but from
the mails I have read on this list so far, I have learnt that all the
devs here prefer that a library API should preferably take power of D
ranges, slices and generics. But what about other things ?

Thanks,
Tarun

On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 6:19 PM, Steven Schveighoffer
<schveiguy yahoo.com> wrote:

 On Sun, 27 Feb 2011 13:53:05 -0500, Tarun Ramakrishna <lenkite gmail.com>
 wrote:


 Is there anything in the standard library to do named pipes IPC in
 both windows and linux ? I am not necessarily looking for a unified
 API, anything that will allow me to setup named pipes on either OS and
 read/write on them will do.


 Any C functions (including system calls) are available. =A0You are free t=


o

 write your own API, and maybe it will be included in Phobos!

 -Steve
Feb 28 2011
parent "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy yahoo.com> writes:
On Mon, 28 Feb 2011 08:00:28 -0500, Tarun Ramakrishna <lenkite gmail.com>
wrote:


 Hi Steven,

 Yes, I have now understood that.

 Is there a guidelines/best practices page somewhere that describes how
 should a good library be coded for acceptance into the standard
 library:  patterns and conventions, etc ? I am very new to D, but from
 the mails I have read on this list so far, I have learnt that all the
 devs here prefer that a library API should preferably take power of D
 ranges, slices and generics. But what about other things ?


There is an issue with Windows system calls that is difficult to solve.  D  
uses the DMC runtime, not the MSVC runtime.  This means when you call C  
library functions (e.g. printf, fopen), it uses DMC's C library.  The  
library has very poor support for converting to/from OS handles from  
things like FILE *.

This wouldn't be such a problem, except Phobos' I/O API is based on FILE  
*.  This means any system calls you make (such as CreateNamedPipe) which  
return a HANDLE will be near impossible to wrap into a FILE *.  In writing  
std.process, I had to write my own converters between FILE * and HANDLE,  
and when that code is available, you should be able to use it (expect to  
have it done by the next release of dmd).

But for now, I would concentrate on getting it to work for your code.  One  
thing to keep in mind is that any library to be accepted into Phobos  
*should* be cross-platform if possible.  I would think named pipes should  
be able to be a cross-platform library.

-Steve
Feb 28 2011