PlainlyIpc

A minimalistic, easy-to-use library for inter-process communication (IPC) with .NET.

The basic one-way IPC communication is realized via the IIpcSender and IIpcReceiver interfaces. The IIpcHandler interface relies on these interfaces and enables bidirectional communication and Remote Procedure Calls (RPC).

The IpcFactory class allows the easy creation of corresponding instances for these interfaces:

IpcFactory ipcFactory = new IpcFactory();
IpcFactory ipcFactory = new IpcFactory(objectConverter);

Creating IIpcSender & IIpcReceiver instances based on named pipes or TCP:

// Named pipe
IIpcReceiver receiver = await ipcFactory.CreateNamedPipeIpcReceiver(namedPipeName);
IIpcSender sender = await ipcFactory.CreateNamedPipeIpcSender(namedPipeName);

// TCP
IIpcReceiver receiver = await ipcFactory.CreateTcpIpcReceiver(namedPipeName);
IIpcSender sender = await ipcFactory.CreateTcpIpcSender(namedPipeName);

Creating IpcHandler instances based on named pipes or TCP:

// Named pipe
IIpcHandler server = await ipcFactory.CreateNamedPipeIpcServer(namedPipeName);
IIpcHandler client = await ipcFactory.CreateNamedPipeIpcClient(namedPipeName);

// TCP
IIpcHandler server = await ipcFactory.CreateTcpIpcServer(namedPipeName);
IIpcHandler client = await ipcFactory.CreateTcpIpcClient(namedPipeName);

The IIpcSender offers the following methods:

Task SendAsync(byte[] data);
Task SendAsync(ReadOnlyMemory<byte> data);
Task SendStringAsync(string data);
Task SendObjectAsync<T>(T data);

The IIpcReceiver offers the following events:

event EventHandler<IpcMessageReceivedEventArgs>? MessageReceived;
event EventHandler<ErrorOccurredEventArgs>? ErrorOccurred;

The IpcHandler offers the features of IIpcSender and IIpcReceiver as well as the following RPC capabilities:

void RegisterService(Type type, object service);
void RegisterService<TIService>(TIService service) where TIService : notnull;
Task<TResult> ExecuteRemote<TIRemoteService, TResult>(Expression<Func<TIRemoteService, Task<TResult>>> func);
Task<TResult> ExecuteRemote<TIRemoteService, TResult>(Expression<Func<TIRemoteService, TResult>> func);
Task ExecuteRemote<TIRemoteService>(Expression<Action<TIRemoteService>> func);

Minimal example:

IpcFactory ipcFactory = new IpcFactory();

using IIpcHandler server = await ipcFactory.CreateNamedPipeIpcServer("MyNamedPipe");
server.MessageReceived += (sender, e) =>
{
	Console.WriteLine(e.Value);
};

using IIpcHandler client = await ipcFactory.CreateNamedPipeIpcClient("MyNamedPipe");
await client.SendStringAsync("Hello World!");

Console.ReadKey();

Additional usage examples can be found in the sample project "PlainlyIpcChatDemo" and the tests in the "PlainlyIpcTests" project.

To make the ExecuteRemote functionality of IIpcHandler easier to use, you can generate proxy classes for RPC interfaces automatically.

With the RemoteProxyCreator:

RemoteProxyCreator.CreateProxyClass<TInterface>(string outputFolderPath, string baseNamespace);

Or via the "PlainlyIpc.SourceGenerator" package. This provides a [GenerateProxy] attribute that can be annotated to remote interfaces or partial classes that implement a remote interface. The source generator then generates the proxy implementations of the functions defined in the remote interface automatically.

[GenerateProxy] // Generates 'MyRemoteFunctionsInterfaceRemoteProxy' class in 'MyRemoteFunctionsInterfaceRemoteProxy.g.cs'
public interface IMyRemoteFunctionsInterface {
	Task MyFunction();
}
// Or
[GenerateProxy] // Generates partial 'MyRemoteFunctionClass' class in 'MyRemoteFunctionClass.g.cs'
public partial class MyRemoteFunctionClass : IMyRemoteFunctionsInterface {
}

Warning: The source generator is still a prototype and has only a very rudimentary implementation.

The basis for serialization and deserialization is the IObjectConverter interface. The default implementation is the System.Text.Json based implementation for this interface.

IObjectConverter objectConverter = new JsonObjectConverter();

The library is developed mainly for ".net8.0" and newer but also supports ".netstandard2.0" and is designed for completely asynchronous IPC and RPC communication. Only the ".netstandard2.0" version has dependencies to other NuGet packages (The packages "System.Memory" and "System.Text.Json" are required to add some functionalities which were introduced in later .NET versions.).

Warning: PlainlyIpc is still under development.

A version 1.0 will be released as soon as all planned features are implemented and properly tested. Therefore, there may be some breaking changes before the release of version 1.0.

NuGet: https://www.nuget.org/packages/Chriffizient.PlainlyIpc