Defining Pipes in IDL Files

When a pipe is defined in an IDL file, the MIDL compiler generates a pipe control structure whose members are pointers to push, pull, and alloc procedures as well as a state variable that coordinates these procedures. The client application initializes the fields in the pipe control structure, maintains its state variable, and manages the data transfer with its own push, pull, and alloc functions. The client stub code calls these application functions in loops during data transfer. For an input pipe, the client stub marshals the transfer data and transmits it to the server stub. For an output pipe, the client stub unmarshals the data into a buffer and passes a pointer to that buffer back to the client application.

The server stub code initializes the fields of the pipe control structure to a state variable, as well as pointers to push and pull routines. The server stub maintains the state and manages its private storage for the transfer data. The server application calls the pull and push routines in loops during the remote procedure call as it receives and unmarshals data from the client stub, or marshals and transmits data to the client stub.

The following example IDL file defines a pipe type LONG_PIPE, whose element size is defined as long. It also declares function prototypes for the remote procedure calls InPipe and OutPipe, to send and receive data, respectively. When the MIDL compiler processes the IDL file, it generates the header file shown in the example.

Example

// File: pipedemo.idl
typedef pipe long LONG_PIPE;
void InPipe( [in] LONG_PIPE pipe_data );
void OutPipe( [out] LONG_PIPE *pipe_data ); 
//end pipedemo.idl
 
// File: pipedemo.h (fragment)
// Generated by the MIDL compiler from pipedemo.idl
typedef struct pipe_LONG_PIPE
{
    void (__RPC_FAR * pull) (
        char __RPC_FAR * state,
        long __RPC_FAR * buf,
        unsigned long esize,
        unsigned long __RPC_FAR * ecount );
    void (__RPC_FAR * push) (
        char __RPC_FAR * state,
        long __RPC_FAR * buf,
        unsigned long ecount );
    void (__RPC_FAR * alloc) (
        char __RPC_FAR * state,
        unsigned long bsize,
        long __RPC_FAR * __RPC_FAR * buf,
        unsigned long __RPC_FAR * bcount );
    char __RPC_FAR * state;
} LONG_PIPE;
 
void InPipe( 
    /* [in] */ LONG_PIPE pipe_data);
void OutPipe( 
    /* [out] */ LONG_PIPE __RPC_FAR *pipe_data);
//end pipedemo.h

Related topics

pipe

/Oi