I've never had to do IPC on Windows before. Currently I'm developing a pair of programs, a standard GUI/CLI app and a windows service. The app has to tell the service what to do. So, assuming the communication is local only, what would be the best communication method for these two processes?
Where best is defined as more robust and less error prone, not the most performant nor the easiest to code.
Code examples will be very welcome, but aren't required 🙂
Note I'm asking about what to use, a standard TCP socket, named pipes, or some other means of communication only.
Thanks!
Best Answer
IPC in .Net can be achieved using:
WCF
using named pipes requires .Net 3.0 and above.
Code example
Remoting
The original IPC framework released with .Net 1.0. I believe remoting is no longer being actively developed, and you are encouraged to use WCF instead
Code example
Inter-process communication via Remoting - uses a tcp channel
Resources
Win32 RPC using csharptest-net RpcLibrary
I came across a project recently that has wrapped the Win32 RPC library and created a .net class library that can be used for local and remote RPC
Project home page: http://csharptest.net/projects/rpclibrary/
MSDN references:
Also has a google protocol buffers rpc client that runs on top of the library: https://code.google.com/p/protobuf-csharp-rpc/
WM_COPYDATA
For completeness it's also possible to use the WIN32 method with the WM_COPYDATA message. I've used this method before in .Net 1.1 to create a single instance application opening multiple files from windows explorer.
Resources
Sockets
Using a custom protocol (harder)