Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!think!ames!ucsd!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!decwrl!labrea!polya!rokicki
From: rokicki@polya.STANFORD.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: IPC - A proposal
Message-ID: <2116@polya.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: 7 Mar 88 19:21:18 GMT
References: <5375@well.UUCP> <739@nuchat.UUCP> <7455@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: rokicki@polya.UUCP (Tomas G. Rokicki)
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 25

> How about my other point -- that FindPort can be hazardous, if Browser
> should somehow be shut down between a FindPort and PutMsg?  Would you
> consider adding codes 'HOLD' and 'RLSE' to your 'ADD ' and 'DEL '?
> (I avoided the word 'LOCK' for probably obvious reasons...)

Nope, all code which sends a message to a public port which might be
shut down should do a

	Forbid() ;
	if (port=FindPort("foobar.baz"))
		PutMsg(port,msg) ;
	Permit() ;
	if (port) /* then message was sent */

Arguments are probably confused, but you get the idea.  Hold/Release
is okay, except the Browser might need to abort due to some
catastrophic problem when a Hold has been put on it.  Do the above,
and everything's hunky-dory, except you have a FindPort() within
Forbid()/Permit() . . .

Oh, and give them a longword length if at all possible; I can see
no reason to *limit* message length to 64K.  It's that kind of
thinking that gave MSDOS 640K and TOS 40 folders.

-tom