IPCnotification

IPCnotification is an event-driven mechanism used in inter-process communication (IPC) to inform one process that a particular event has occurred or data is available. It enables asynchronous signaling across process boundaries, allowing producers and consumers to operate without tight coupling or continuous polling.

A typical pattern involves a producer (sender) generating an event and issuing a notification on a channel or endpoint, while one or more consumers register interest and handle notifications with handlers or callbacks. The underlying transport may be a signals mechanism, a message queue, a shared memory region with synchronization primitives, or a higher-level IPC framework. Delivery can be asynchronous and best-effort or reliable and ordered, depending on the design.

Common forms include signals, named event objects, message queues, and pub/sub facilities; in distributed systems, brokers or middleware provide IPC-like notifications across machines. The exact semantics—such as delivery guarantees, ordering, and fault handling—depend on the implementation and platform.

Design considerations for IPCnotifications include security and permission checks, potential races, ordering guarantees, payload size, and latency. Reliability versus overhead, failure modes, and cross-platform compatibility are also important factors. Proper use typically involves defining the notification contract (what constitutes an event, who can publish, who can subscribe) and ensuring appropriate cleanup and error handling to avoid resource leaks.

See also inter-process communication, event-driven programming, message queues, signals, and notification systems.