Streaming data from C++ program?

Question

I want to stream some data from my program for other subscribers (other programs). These programs can use these data as streaming event.

What I want?

• How it is done generally?
• Any libraries or papers pointing to technique and pros/cons?
• Security related Ideas?

I will dig more information on my own even if I get a small hint.

Example :

Program A : Object A changed =======> Program B : Report Change in Object A

Answer 1

Broadly it sounds like you're trying to perform inter-process communication, aka IPC.

In the tags to your question you refer to Windows. This link provides a broad list of the IPC options within Windows.

The tag list for your question also says platform-independent. Either a socket based solution or a Pipe based solution will mostly standard across a large number of platforms that you're likely to develop for. You can either use sockets directly or use one of the numerous cross-platform wrappers, eg. ZeroMQ and Boost, to hide some of the detail.

It's not clear from the question whether Program A and Program B are running on the same machine? If not then using sockets is a better approach.

Answer 2

Best I found:

• Google Protobuf
• Facebook Thrift

Pros:

• Helps with establishing the formats for streaming
• Fast
• Easy to build

Cons:

• List item
• Other top-level design issues (bandwidth control, cancelation) have to go on top.

Answer 3

Two things are generally used: sockets/pipes which are just your basic byte streams, and message passing which is a bit more complex, made for parallel use and horizontal scalability.

Answer 4

I am not sure if it is a bit advanced, but have a look at boost::asio http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_39_0/doc/html/boost_asio/overview/core/basics.html