Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!spool2.mu.edu!uunet!bria!mike
From: mike@bria
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Can UNIX pipe connections be compiled?
Message-ID: <377@bria>
Date: 20 Jan 91 09:28:10 GMT
References: <1991Jan18.193234.216@rucs.runet.edu> <373@bria> <1991Jan20.061658.24415@convex.com>
Reply-To: uunet!bria!mike (Michael Stefanik)
Organization: Briareus Corporation, Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 26

Tom Christiansen writes:
>From the keyboard of uunet!bria!mike (Michael Stefanik):
>>Unless I'm reading you wrong, you seem to think that pipes are some coded
>>mechanism for communication between processes; it isn't.  An (anonymous)
>>pipe is a temporary entity created in the filesystem by the kernel on
>>behalf of two related processes that want to communicate.  
>
>No, it's not.  On BSD systems, pipe(2) is implemented as a 
>semi-disabled version of socketpair(2).  It's all IPC -- no
>filesystem activity is involved.  All the work is not a Vax,
>nor is it SysV.  

Yup, and as I was writing this I thought of mentioning it, but decided
not to (someone who's having troubles with SV3 pipes ain't gonna glean
much from the BSD socket mechanism.)  However, let's not forget that
member of the pipe family that is a certain member of the filesystem,
namely, the "named pipe".  

Hmmm ... there are anonymous pipes and named pipes.  How about the
"incognito pipe"?
-- 
Michael Stefanik, Systems Engineer (JOAT), Briareus Corporation
UUCP: ...!uunet!bria!mike
--
technoignorami (tek'no-ig'no-ram`i) a group of individuals that are constantly
found to be saying things like "Well, it works on my DOS machine ..."