# Enterprise Communication Interface (ECI)

## IPC Interface

There are three basic functions in the ECI-client-library to communicate with Agile e6 with inter-process communication:

Function name | Application | Direction
eci_connect | Initializes IPC to Agile e6 | CAX -> Agile e6
eci_call | Sends/receives data to/from Agile e6 | CAX -> Agile e6
eci_close | Closes IPC to Agile e6 | CAX -> Agile e6

| Before communicating with Agile e6 via IPC, Agile e6 has to be started completely.
| If Agile e6 is used with SecurityLevel "proctected" or "process" then call eci_connect instead of function eci_connect_secure or call eci_chk_pwd after calling eci_connect.

After initialization of the inter-process-communication using eci_connect, the ECI-functions are available using eci_call with the appropriate function name and the necessary function input/output parameters. You can use the utility function to add an ECI-parameter to the ECI-administration structure.

Supported transport modes:

| tcpip | windows_dde
UNIX (Java Client) | yes | no
UNIX (Batch) | yes | no
Windows XP(DataView client) | yes | yes
Windows XP (Batch) | yes | no