Introduction

ZeroEQ is a cross-platform C++ library for modern messaging. It provides pub-sub messaging using ZeroMQ and integrates REST APIs with JSON payload in C++ applications using an optional http::Server. ZeroEQ applications are linked using automatic discovery based on ZeroConf protocol or through explicit connection addressing using hostname and port. Applications can define a vocabulary for the published messages, provided by ZeroBuf or by implementing a simple Serializable interface.

Features

ZeroEQ provides the following major features:

• Publish events using zeroeq::Publisher
• Subscribe to events using zeroeq::Subscriber
• Web service APIs using zeroeq::http::Server using REST and JSON
• Client-Server request-reply using zeroeq::Server and zeroeq::Client
• Asynchronous, reliable transport using ZeroMQ
• Automatic publisher discovery using Zeroconf
• Serialization of events using ZeroBuf
• [List of RFCs](@ref rfcs)

Example Use Cases

• Interactive Supercomputing: loose, robust and fast coupling of unrelated applications
• Integration of C++ applications into Jupyter Notebooks: automatic python code generation to remote control C++ applications using the zeroeq::http::Server

Building from Source

ZeroEQ is a cross-platform library, designed to run on any modern operating system, including all Unix variants. It requires a C++11 compiler and uses CMake to create a platform-specific build environment. The following platforms and build environments are tested:

• Linux: Ubuntu 16.04, RHEL 6.8 (Makefile, Ninja)
• Mac OS X: 10.9 (Makefile, Ninja)

ZeroEQ requires the following external, pre-installed dependencies:

• ZeroMQ 4.0 or later
• Boost for unit tests; version 1.58 for optional cppnetlib

Building from source is as simple as:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/HBPVIS/ZeroEQ.git
mkdir ZeroEQ/build
cd ZeroEQ/build
cmake -GNinja -DCLONE_SUBPROJECTS=ON ..
ninja

This work has been partially funded by the European Union Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007­2013) under grant agreement no. 604102 (HBP).