15.1.1 Mailslot Names

When a process creates a mailslot, the mailslot name must have the following form:

\\.\mailslot\[path]name

Mailslot names can be any length and are not case-sensitive. A mailslot name can be preceded by a path consisting of the names of pseudo-directories separated by backslashes. For example, if a user expected messages from Bob, Pete, and Sue on the subject of taxes, the user's mailslot application might allow the user to create individual mailslots for each sender:

\\.\mailslot\taxes\bobmail.tax
\\.\mailslot\taxes\petemail.tax
\\.\mailslot\taxes\suemail.tax

When a process puts a message into a mailslot, it uses a mailslot name in one of three forms. To write to a mailslot on a specific remote computer, the process uses the following form:

\\computername\mailslot\[path]name

The following form allows a process to put a message into every mailslot with a given name that exists on computers in the specified domain:

\\domainname\mailslot\[path]name

To put a message into every mailslot with a given name that exists in the system's primary domain, a process uses the following form:

\\*\mailslot\[path]name