🖧 IPC Mechanism Simulator

A Java-based simulation of classic Inter-Process Communication (IPC) mechanisms — Pipes, Shared Memory, and Message Queues. This project demonstrates how processes communicate in an OS-like environment using Java multithreading and synchronization.

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🔧 Features

• Simulates 3 IPC mechanisms:
  • 🧵 Pipe Communication
  • 🧠 Shared Memory
  • 📬 Message Queue
• Thread-safe communication between processes
• Modular and extensible design
• Real-time event logging
• Educational and demonstrative use case

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📁 Project Structure

IPC-Simulator/
├── src/
│   └── ipc/
│       ├── Logger.java              // Logs inter-process events
│       ├── MessageQueue.java        // Message queue simulation
│       ├── PipeCommunication.java   // Pipe-based communication
│       ├── SharedMemory.java        // Shared memory simulation
│       ├── ProcessSimulator.java    // Simulates concurrent processes
│       └── Main.java                // Entry point to run simulation
├── README.md

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🚀 Getting Started

✅ Requirements

• Java 8 or higher
• Java IDE (IntelliJ / Eclipse / VS Code) or terminal

▶️ Run the Project

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/Magnus0969/IPC-Simulator.git
cd IPC-Simulator

2. Compile the Java files

javac -d out src/ipc/*.java

3. Run the simulation

java -cp out ipc.Main

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🧠 IPC Mechanisms Simulated

Mechanism	Description
Pipes	Uses PipedInputStream and PipedOutputStream to simulate stream-based IPC.
Shared Memory	Simulates shared access to a memory block via synchronized Map.
Message Queue	Implements FIFO-based communication using BlockingQueue.

Each method is encapsulated in its own class and orchestrated via ProcessSimulator.

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💻 Sample Output

[Logger] Process A wrote to Pipe: Hello
[Logger] Process B read from Pipe: Hello
[Logger] Process A wrote to Shared Memory: [key: 1, value: Data]
[Logger] Process B read from Shared Memory: Data
[Logger] Process A sent message: Ping
[Logger] Process B received message: Ping

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🎓 Use Cases

• 📘 Operating System assignments and labs
• 🔄 Understanding IPC and concurrency in Java
• 🛠️ System design & process synchronization demos

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🛠️ Future Enhancements

• 🖥 JavaFX/Swing-based visual dashboard
• 📄 JSON-configurable process and communication patterns
• 📡 Add semaphores, sockets, and advanced IPC
• 🕒 Logging to file + timestamps

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👨‍💻 Author

Karthik B Magadi
GitHub: @Magnus0969

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📜 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License

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