FIFOs implementation

Question

Consider the following code:

writer.c

mkfifo("/tmp/myfifo", 0660);

int fd = open("/tmp/myfifo", O_WRONLY);

char *foo, *bar;

...

write(fd, foo, strlen(foo)*sizeof(char));
write(fd, bar, strlen(bar)*sizeof(char));

reader.c

int fd = open("/tmp/myfifo", O_RDONLY);

char buf[100];
read(fd, buf, ??);

My question is:

Since it's not know before hand how many bytes will foo and bar have, how can I know how many bytes to read from reader.c?
Because if I, for example, read 10 bytes in reader and foo and bar are together less than 10 bytes, I will have them both in the same variable and that I do not want.
Ideally I would have one read function for every variable, but again I don't know before hand how many bytes will the data have.
I thought about adding another write instruction in writer.c between the write for foo and bar with a separator and then I would have no problem decoding it from reader.c. Is this the way to go about it?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Many of the other answers mention using some sort of protocol for your data and I believe this is the correct approach. This protocol can be as simple or complex as necessary. I have provided a couple of examples that you may find useful¹.

---

In a simple case, you may only have a length byte followed by the data byte(s) (i.e. C string).

+--------------+
| length byte  |
+--------------+
| data byte(s) |
+--------------+

Writer:

uint8_t foo[UCHAR_MAX+1];
uint8_t len;
int fd;

mkfifo("/tmp/myfifo", 0660);
fd = open("/tmp/myfifo", O_WRONLY);

memset(foo, UCHAR_MAX+1, 0);
len = (uint8_t)snprintf((char *)foo, UCHAR_MAX, "Hello World!");

/* The length byte is written first followed by the data. */
write(fd, len, 1);
write(fd, foo, strlen(foo));

Reader:

uint8_t buf[UCHAR_MAX+1];
uint8_t len;
int fd;

fd = open("/tmp/myfifo", O_RDONLY);

memset(buf, UCHAR_MAX+1, 0);

/* The length byte is read first followed by a read 
 * for the specified number of data bytes.
 */
read(fd, len, 1);
read(fd, buf, len);

---

In a more complex case, you may have a length byte followed by data bytes containing more than a simple C string.

+----------------+
|  length byte   |
+----------------+
| data type byte |
+----------------+
|  data byte(s)  |
+----------------+

Common Header:

#define FOO_TYPE 100
#define BAR_TYPE 200

typedef struct {
    uint8_t type;
    uint32_t flags;
    int8_t msg[20];
} __attribute__((aligned, packed)) foo_t;

typedef struct {
    uint8_t type;
    uint16_t flags;
    int32_t value;
} __attribute__((aligned, packed)) bar_t;

Writer:

foo_t foo;
unsigned char len;
int fd;

mkfifo("/tmp/myfifo", 0660);
fd = open("/tmp/myfifo", O_WRONLY);

memset(&foo, sizeof(foo), 0);
foo.type = FOO_TYPE;
foo.flags = 0xDEADBEEF;
snprintf(foo.msg, 20-1, "Hello World!");

/* The length byte is written first followed by the data. */
len = sizeof(foo);
write(fd, len, 1);
write(fd, foo, sizeof(foo));

Reader:

uint8_t buf[UCHAR_MAX+1];
uint8_t len;
uint16_t type;
union data {
    foo_t * foo;
    bar_t * bar;
}
int fd;

fd = open("/tmp/myfifo", O_RDONLY);

memset(buf, UCHAR_MAX+1, 0);

/* The length byte is read first followed by a read 
 * for the specified number of data bytes.
 */
read(fd, len, 1);
read(fd, buf, len);

/* Retrieve the message type from the beginning of the buffer. */
memcpy(&type, buf, sizeof(type));

/* Process the data depending on the type. */
switch(type) {
    case FOO_TYPE:
        data.foo = (foo_t)buf;
        printf("0x%08X: %s\n", data.foo.flags, data.foo.msg); 
        break;
    case BAR_TYPE:
        data.bar = (bar_t)buf;
        printf("0x%04X: %d\n", data.bar.flags, data.bar.value); 
        break;
    default:
        printf("unrecognized type\n");
}

_{1 - This code was written from memory and is untested.}