Genode RPC: Handling vector parameters

[Christian Helmuth]

Hello 정복득,

On Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 09:16:19AM +0000, 정복득 wrote:
> I need to use parameters of std::vector<std::string> type for my RPC
> program, but it doesn't seem to work. (I want to define a RPC
> function passing varible number of strings as a parameter. The
> number of strings is very flexible.) I read about the transferable
> argument types from the 11.05 release notes.

The RPC mechanism does not support (de)marshalling of complex types
like std::vector<std::string> as the serialization of such types
cannot be implemented in a generic way but needs type-specific
serialization functions.

> If vector isn't one of the transferable argument type, could you
> give me an alternative programming tip?

This issue comes up from time to time and we always encourage the
users to enter a discussion about what they really want to achieve
resp. to clarify the details of the use case. So, please allow me to
give some background information:

* The RPC mechanism is just one basic synchronous communication
  mechanism. Therefore, it's suited for configuration interfaces and
  interfaces with simple parameters, i.e. C++ base or POD types. The
  mechanism is not inteded to support structured bulk traffic with
  complex serialization tasks.

* The base mechanism used for RPC is the IPC mechanism of the base
  platform, which is usually limited with regard to the maximum
  message size. For Fiasco.OC, the limiting factor is the size of the
  UTCB.

* Besides RPC, Genode also supports the packet-stream interface, which
  is a packet-based shared-memory mechanism (see
  os/include/os/packet_stream.h and os/include/packet_stream_rx/tx).
  The packet stream is well suited for bulk traffic and also supports
  asynchronous operation.

With this background, we could revisit your usage scenario and come up
with an approach that fits best.

Unfortunately, the serialization of std::vector<std::string> is in any
case out of the scope of the base framework, but should not be that
hard.

Regards
-- 
Christian Helmuth
Genode Labs

http://www.genode-labs.com/ · http://genode.org/ · /ˈdʒiː.nəʊd/

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