Message Patterns

An important ToolTalk feature is that senders need to know little about the recipients because applications that want to receive messages explicitly state what message they want to receive. This information is registered with the ToolTalk service in the form of message patterns.

Applications can provide message patterns to the ToolTalk service at installation time and while the application is running. Message patterns are created similarly to the way a message is created; both use the same type of information. For each type of message an application wants to receive, it obtains an empty message pattern, fills in the attributes, and registers the pattern with the ToolTalk service. These message patterns usually match the message protocols that applications have agreed to use. Applications can add more patterns for individual use.

When the ToolTalk service receives a message from a sending application, it compares the information in the message to the register patterns. Once matches have been found, the ToolTalk service delivers copies of the message to all recipients.

For each pattern that describes a message an application wants to receive, the application declares whether it can handle or observe the message. Although many applications can observe a message, only one application can handle the message to ensure that a requested operation is performed only once. If the ToolTalk service cannot find a handler for a request, it returns the message to the sending application indicating that delivery failed.