Hey guys, Following up on Contractor issues<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kjpIHASnkcFnbzFp_Hs5ikeciK_t4YVdZfn4WCKai4c/edit>document and passing text buffers <https://bugs.launchpad.net/contractor/+bug/1025341> in particular, it appeared to me that we might need to pass any type of data. So I've finally sat down and listed all the ways to pass data from one process to another along with their applicability to Contractor use case, the doc is available at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_w6-XBtr9qXXteytC9Mz0JqXZZoMsOPdfTDXVcoswUY/edit#
I suggest we support all three direct transfer mechanisms, because each of them has a distinct use case and they're all supported by some provider apps. As for pointer-based mechanisms, I think we should support only files; named pipes are needed only for faking streaming support that can be done in a wrapper script, and everything else is either too limited or not designed for our use case. For stream handling we'll also need a way of indication that the service provider expects data streams/buffers, not files. I suggest we add the following keys to the .contract file format: 1. Something like 'StreamExec' for the command to run when passing data in stream mode 2. A 'StreamFormat' key, similar to all those % values in Exec key<http://standards.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/ar01s06.html>in .contract and .desktop files 3. An optional 'StreamFileDescriptor' key that specifies the file descriptor on which the service provider expects client data. It's 0 (standard input) for the vast majority of apps, so let's make it optional. I suggest avoiding faking stream support for file-based contracts and vice versa, because that can be easily faked in a wrapper script, and the same contract may exist in two different versions, e.g. in case streaming doesn't support all the mimetypes that passing files does. In short: leave that to the .contract author. -- Sergey "Shnatsel" Davidoff OS architect @ elementary
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