Minitalk

Overview

Minitalk is a project designed to develop a small data exchange program using UNIX signals. It provides an opportunity to practice inter-process communication (IPC) with signals and to deepen your understanding of signal handling in C.

Project Goals

• Create a client-server communication system using UNIX signals.
• Implement robust error handling and manage memory efficiently.
• Understand and apply signal handling in C programming.
• Design a system that supports concurrent communication from multiple clients.

Features

Mandatory Part

• Server:

  • Starts and prints its PID.
  • Receives strings from clients using UNIX signals.
  • Prints received strings promptly.
  • Can handle multiple clients sequentially without needing a restart.

• Client:

  • Takes two parameters: server PID and the string to send.
  • Sends the string to the server using UNIX signals.

• Communication:

  • Uses SIGUSR1 and SIGUSR2 signals for communication.
  • Does not use any other type of signal.

Bonus Features

• Acknowledgement:

  • The server sends an acknowledgment signal back to the client for each message received.

• Unicode Support:

  • The system can handle and transmit Unicode characters.

Implementation Details

Signal Handling

The core of Minitalk relies on UNIX signals to facilitate communication between the client and server. The signals used are:

• SIGUSR1
• SIGUSR2

The client sends data to the server, which then decodes the received signals to reconstruct the transmitted string. The server processes these signals and prints the message efficiently.

Error Handling

• Thorough error checking is implemented to ensure that the program does not quit unexpectedly.
• The client and server handle all potential errors gracefully and maintain stable operation.

Memory Management

• The project ensures no memory leaks occur by properly freeing allocated memory.
• The use of global variables is minimized and justified.

Makefile

• A Makefile is provided to compile the source files into the client and server executables.
• The Makefile includes rules for compiling, cleaning, and rebuilding the project, without relinking unnecessarily.

Setup and Usage

1. Compiling the Project:

   make