Patent ID: 7293270

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for scheduling and coordinating tasks between a master application and a slave application, the method comprising using the master application to perform steps of: receiving a request from an application program; determining whether the request includes an embedded subtask; if the request includes the embedded subtask, extracting the embedded subtask and sending the embedded subtask to a target mailbox in a shared memory space wherein it will be retrieved and processed by the slave application, wherein sending the embedded subtask comprises steps of: locking the target mailbox for mutual exclusion; determining whether the target mailbox is in a parked state or in an idle busywait state; if the target mailbox is in the idle busywait state then marking a task command and a pointer to a message in the target mailbox, wherein the message comprises the embedded subtask; and unlocking the target mailbox; and receiving a response from the slave application, said response indicating that the embedded subtask was completed.