IPDL: The Inter-Process Protocol Definition Language
IPDL is the language that Mozilla is using to describe all the messages between processes. Invented by Chris Jones, the IPDL language makes it easier for us to write type-safe and secure code by generating a lot of the basic validation code involved with messages.
When Chris was at Mozilla Headquarters a few weeks ago, he presented a tech-talk on IPDL which has been recorded and is available for download or viewing:
In the presentation, Chris explains the motivations for IPDL, demonstrates basic usage, and answers many questions about the limitations and benefits of using IPDL. I encourage anyone who is interested in Mozilla’s Multi-Process work to watch the presentation.
There are also some IPDL protocols in the tree if you’d like to read them: see the dom/ipc directory in the Electrolysis branch.
September 9th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Is this used on top of Chromium’s IPC code?
September 10th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Yes, at least for now. We’re still considering whether using Chromium’s IPC layer is a good long-term solution. Fortunately IPDL pretty much isolates Mozilla code from the Chromium IPC internals.