README
1WHAT'S EVEN NEWER
2
3I received another patch from Matthew Reimer <mreimer@vpop.net> which
4includes docs and a bug fix that makes mm_lock() and mm_unlock() work.
5
6I also replaced references to the deprecated sv_* with the recommended
7PL_sv_*.
8
9--
10Arthur Choung
11August 11, 2000
12
13----------
14
15WHAT'S NEW
16
17I received an email from Matthew Reimer <mreimer@vpop.net> containing a patch
18which adds a shared-memory hash, because they "wanted to avoid the inefficiency
19of unbalanced binary trees." I can't really blame them. I mean, if I had a
20nickel every time I heard that... well... you know.
21
22Anyway, here is the patched version of IPC::MM. I haven't tried it myself, so
23use it at your own risk. Unfortunately, the POD-style documentation hasn't been
24updated to reflect the additional code, and the same goes for the example and
25test scripts.
26
27Thanks for the patch!
28
29--
30Arthur Choung
31July 16, 2000
32
33----------
34
35DESCRIPTION
36
37 IPC::MM provides an interface to Ralf Engelschall's mm library, allowing
38 data to be shared between multiple processes in a relatively convenient
39 way.
40
41COPYRIGHT & TERMS
42
43 Copyright (C) 1999, Arthur Choung <arthur@etoys.com>.
44 All rights reserved.
45
46 This module is free software; you may redistribute it and/or
47 modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
48
49 THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRENTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER
50 EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
51 WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
52 IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES RESULTING FROM
53 THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
54
55PREREQUISITES
56
57 This module requires Ralf Engelschall's mm library.
58 I have tested it with version 1.0.9.
59 http://www.engelschall.com/sw/mm/
60
61 This module requires perl 5.004 or later.
62
63INSTALLATION
64
65 Before installing this module, you must first install the mm library.
66 Please refer to the instructions therein for details.
67
68 To install this module, move into the directory where this file is
69 located and type the following:
70
71 perl Makefile.PL
72 make
73 make test (optional)
74 make install
75
76 This will install the module into the Perl library directory.
77
78 See the POD documentation for further details. Once the module
79 is installed, you should be able to read the documentation by
80 typing the following from the command-line:
81
82 perldoc IPC::MM
83
84EXAMPLE
85
86 The example/ directory contains a few files to serve as a demonstration and
87 example of IPC::MM.
88
89 mm_server.pl is a forking server that maintains a shared hash. It accepts
90 connections from clients and forks, so that a child process is making the
91 changes to the shared hash.
92
93 mm_client.pl is the client for mm_server.pl. It sends a command to the
94 server over a specified socket, and prints the results.
95
96 load.sh is a convenience shell script that calls mm_client.pl a bunch o'
97 times in order to populate the shared hash maintained by mm_server.pl
98
99NOTES
100
101 This module has not been extensively tested, so it should be considered
102 alpha software at best.
103
104 This is probably the first and only release of this module that I will
105 make. Anybody is welcome to make improvements to this module and to
106 take ownership of it as well.
107
108--
109Arthur Choung <arthur@etoys.com>
110September 13, 1999
111