Apple Inc.
Port Groups

Abstract:

In an embodiment, an operating system provides a port group service that permits two or more ports to be bound together as a port group. A thread may listen for messages and/or events on the port group, and thus may receive a message/event from any of the ports in the port group and may process that message/event. Threads that send messages/events ("sending threads") may send a message/event to a port in the port group, and the messages/events received on the various ports may be processed according to a queue policy for the ports in the port group. Messages/events may be transmitted to from the ports to a listening thread (a "receiving thread") using a receive policy that determines the priority at which the receiving thread is to execute to process the message/event.