I have written a proper Win32:MMF module for shared memory support under Windows. I have tested it under .Net and VC 6. It works under Windows NT, 2000 and XP. I haven't tested it under 98, but who cares about 98's anyway?

The following is a snip on using the module mentioned -

use strict;
use warnings;
use Win32::MMF;
use Data::Dumper;
use CGI;

# fork a process
defined(my $pid = fork()) or die "Can not fork a child process!";

if ($pid) {
    my $ns1 = Win32::MMF->new ( -namespace => "My.data1" );
    my $ns2 = Win32::MMF->new ( -namespace => "My.data2" );

    my $cgi = new CGI;
    my $data = {a=>[1,2,3], b=>4, c=>"A\0B\0C\0"};

    $ns1->write($data);  # automatic locking by default
    $ns2->write($cgi);

    print "--- Sent ---\n";
    print Dumper($data), "\n";
    print Dumper($cgi), "\n";

    sleep(1);

} else {

    # in child
    sleep(1);
    my $ns1 = Win32::MMF->new ( -namespace => "My.data1",
                                -reuse => 1 )
            or die "Namespace does not exist!";

    my $ns2 = Win32::MMF->new ( -namespace => "My.data2",
                                -reuse => 1 )
            or die "Namespace does not exist!";

    my $data = $ns1->read();
    my $cgi = $ns2->read();

    print "--- Received ---\n";
    print Dumper($data), "\n";
    print Dumper($cgi), "\n";
    
    print "--- Use Received Object ---\n";
    # use the object from another process :-)
    print $cgi->header(),
          $cgi->start_html(), "\n",
          $cgi->end_html(), "\n";
}
[download]

The above is just a simple demo on the module. To impliment something like what you have suggested -

# turn off built-in auto-locking
my $ns = Win32::MMF->new ( -namespace => "My.data1",
                           -size => 2*1024*1024,
                           -autolock => 0 );

- use Win32::Semaphore module
- Create a read and a write semaphore.
- In server:
    wait($read_semaphore);
    $xml = $ns->read();
    release($write_semaphore);
- In client:
    wait($write_semaphore);
    $ns->write($xml);
    release($read_semaphore);
[download]

You can also pass blessed objects from one process into another and pick up execution in another process.

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