Using a Mailslot for IPC

Mailslots provide one-way communication. Any process that creates a mailslot is a mailslot server. Other processes, called mailslot clients, send messages to the mailslot server by writing a message to its mailslot. Incoming messages are always appended to the mailslot. The mailslot saves the messages until the mailslot server has read them. A process can be both a mailslot server and a mailslot client, so two-way communication is possible using multiple mailslots.

A mailslot client can send a message to a mailslot on its local computer, to a mailslot on another computer, or to all mailslots with the same name on all computers in a specified network domain. Messages broadcast to all mailslots on a domain can be no longer than 400 bytes, whereas messages sent to a single mailslot are limited only by the maximum message size specified by the mailslot server when it created the mailslot.

Key Point  Mailslots offer an easy way for applications to send and receive short messages. They also provide the ability to broadcast messages across all computers in a network domain. For more information, see Mailslots.