Summary
In computer science, message queues and mailboxes are software-engineering components typically used for inter-process communication (IPC), or for inter-thread communication within the same process. They use a queue for messaging – the passing of control or of content. Group communication systems provide similar kinds of functionality. The message queue paradigm is a sibling of the publisher/subscriber pattern, and is typically one part of a larger message-oriented middleware system. Most messaging systems support both the publisher/subscriber and message queue models in their API, e.g. Java Message Service (JMS). Message queues implement an asynchronous communication pattern between two or more processes/threads whereby the sending and receiving party do not need to interact with the message queue at the same time. Messages placed onto the queue are stored until the recipient retrieves them. Message queues have implicit or explicit limits on the size of data that may be transmitted in a single message and the number of messages that may remain outstanding on the queue. Many implementations of message queues function internally within an operating system or within an application. Such queues exist for the purposes of that system only. Other implementations allow the passing of messages between different computer systems, potentially connecting multiple applications and multiple operating systems. These message queuing systems typically provide resilience functionality to ensure that messages do not get "lost" in the event of a system failure. Examples of commercial implementations of this kind of message queuing software (also known as message-oriented middleware) include IBM MQ (formerly MQ Series) and Oracle Advanced Queuing (AQ). There is a Java standard called Java Message Service, which has several proprietary and free software implementations. Real-time operating systems (RTOSes) such as VxWorks and QNX encourage the use of message queuing as the primary inter-process or inter-thread communication mechanism.
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.