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message passing
message passing A way of designing a software system that involves concurrent processes sending data encapsulated as messages to each other. The advantage of the approach is that it provides a low level of coupling between the concurrent processes such that the messages can be passed either directly within a single processor or indirectly using a LAN or WAN communications medium.
In some forms of message passing the recipient is named specifically by the sender; in other forms the recipient is not defined by the sender but by the way in which the network of concurrent processes is defined. The latter scheme provides a very good basis for reusing the concurrent processes, because they are independent of each other. UNIX processes use this form of communication; the processes are independent and the connectivity is defined (at a higher level) by defining “pipes” that convey messages generated by one process to one other process. A similar scheme is provided by MASCOT. Most object-oriented design methods include some form of message passing, especially to transmit events from one object to another. In these approaches the recipient is usually defined explicitly, which thereby increases the coupling between the objects. |
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JOHN DAINTITH. "message passing." A Dictionary of Computing. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. JOHN DAINTITH. "message passing." A Dictionary of Computing. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O11-messagepassing.html JOHN DAINTITH. "message passing." A Dictionary of Computing. 2004. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O11-messagepassing.html |
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message passing
message passing In a DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM the individual SERVERS and CLIENTS need to communicate with each other: for example, a WEB SERVER may need to communicate with a DATABASE SERVER in order to retrieve some data which is to be displayed in a WEB PAGE. When the communication occurs via textual messages passed over some transmission medium, this is known as message passing.
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DARREL INCE. "message passing." A Dictionary of the Internet. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. DARREL INCE. "message passing." A Dictionary of the Internet. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O12-messagepassing.html DARREL INCE. "message passing." A Dictionary of the Internet. 2001. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O12-messagepassing.html |
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