Chapter 3 Messages

Within a SmartSockets application, interprocess communication occurs through messages. A message is a packet of information sent from one process to one or more other processes providing instructions or data for the receiving process. Messages can carry many different kinds of information, including:

variable data in the form of a series of variable names and their values (the most common use of a message for SmartSockets)

commands to a process’ command interface

user-defined binary data, such as images or multi-byte strings

monitoring information about RTserver and RTclient processes

guaranteed message delivery (GMD) information about other messages

All of these different kinds of messages are classified by message types. For example, numeric variable data is typically sent in a NUMERIC_DATA type of message, and an operator warning is typically sent in a WARNING type of message. A SmartSockets application can use both the standard message types provided with SmartSockets, as well as user-defined message types.

This chapter describes message composition, message types, how to create message types, and how to work with messages using the C++ class library. This chapter should be considered a companion to the TIBCO SmartSockets User’s Guide. You may wish to read the detailed information on SmartSockets messages in the TIBCO SmartSockets User’s Guide before proceeding further in this chapter. The intent of this chapter is merely to focus on constructing and managing messages using TipcMsg and TipcMt classes.

Topics

TipcMsg Class

TipcMt Class

Working With Messages

Message Files