post.h File Reference

Data structures. More...

#include "copyright.h"
#include "network.h"
#include "synchlist.h"

Go to the source code of this file.

Classes
class	MailHeader
	The following class defines part of the message header. This is prepended to the message by the PostOffice, before the message is sent to the Network. More...
class	Mail
class	MailBox
class	PostOffice

Macros
#define	MaxMailSize   (MaxPacketSize - sizeof(MailHeader))

Typedefs
typedef int	MailBoxAddress
	Mailbox address – uniquely identifies a mailbox on a given machine. A mailbox is just a place for temporary storage for messages.

Detailed Description

Data structures.

Author

Olivier Hureau, Hugo Feydel , Julien ALaimo Data structures for providing the abstraction of unreliable, ordered, fixed-size message delivery to mailboxes on other (directly connected) machines. Messages can be dropped by the network, but they are never corrupted.

The US Post Office delivers mail to the addressed mailbox. By analogy, our post office delivers packets to a specific buffer (MailBox), based on the mailbox number stored in the packet header. Mail waits in the box until a thread asks for it; if the mailbox is empty, threads can wait for mail to arrive in it.

Thus, the service our post office provides is to de-multiplex incoming packets, delivering them to the appropriate thread.

With each message, you get a return address, which consists of a "from address", which is the id of the machine that sent the message, and a "from box", which is the number of a mailbox on the sending machine to which you can send an acknowledgement, if your protocol requires this.

Copyright (c) 1992-1993 The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. See copyright.h for copyright notice and limitation of liability and disclaimer of warranty provisions.