IPC Identifiers

Each IPC object has a unique IPC identifier associated with it. When we say ``IPC object'', we are speaking of a single message queue, semaphore set, or shared memory segment. This identifier is used within the kernel to uniquely identify an IPC object. For example, to access a particular shared memory segment, the only item you need is the unique ID value which has been assigned to that segment.

The uniqueness of an identifier is relevant to the type of object in question. To illustrate this, assume a numeric identifier of ``12345''. While there can never be two message queues with this same identifier, there exists the distinct possibility of a message queue and, say, a shared memory segment, which have the same numeric identifier.