mouse@LARRY.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU (09/02/90)
> I am writing some X client applications that need to communicate with > each other. What is the best way ? There is no single best way; it depends on many characteristics of the data exchange. > What is ICCCM and where can I learn about it ? The ICCCM is the Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual. A copy is included on the R4 release tape; a version that has been processed to a plain-text file is available for ftp from 132.206.1.1 (X/ICCCM.doc). What the best way to do this is depends on what you're trying to send back and forth. For example (the best case), if you send a few bytes of data once in a while, with no particular urgency about delivery, you can just stuff the data in a property of some window. If (worst case) you must send large quantities of data, fast and often, you probably can't use the X mechanisms directly and will have to resort to something like a shared memory segment or a direct connection. For maximum portability, you must use window properties or selections. This would allow interoperation even when the clients are using incompatible transports (as a simple example, consider a server speaking TCP to one client and DECnet to another). You might instead set up a TCP connection directly between your client processes; this would gain speed at the expense of portability (not everyone speaks TCP, and even if both ends do, they can't necessarily reach one another directly, even though they can both reach the X server). der Mouse old: mcgill-vision!mouse new: mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu