What inter-process communication methods do you know in Python?

In Python, there are several methods for inter-process communication (IPC):

• multiprocessing module:

  • Queue — a thread-safe queue for passing objects between processes.
  • Pipe — a bidirectional channel for data exchange between two processes.
  • Manager — an object that allows creating shared objects (lists, dictionaries) accessible from different processes.

• Sockets (socket) — enable data exchange between processes, even on different machines.

• Shared files and memory:

  • Using files for reading and writing data.
  • multiprocessing.shared_memory module (since Python 3.8) for creating shared memory.

• Signals and OS message queues — lower-level mechanisms, rarely used directly in Python.

Example with multiprocessing.Queue:

from multiprocessing import Process, Queue

def worker(q):
    q.put('Hello from child')

if __name__ == '__main__':
    q = Queue()
    p = Process(target=worker, args=(q,))
    p.start()
    print(q.get())  # Outputs: Hello from child
    p.join()