Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!ukc!axion!uzi-9mm.fulcrum.bt.co.uk!cat.fulcrum.bt.co.uk!cnix!klaus
From: klaus@cnix.uucp (klaus u schallhorn)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Can UNIX pipe connections be compiled?
Message-ID: <1991Jan21.124134.5647@cnix.uucp>
Date: 21 Jan 91 12:41:34 GMT
References: <1991Jan18.193234.216@rucs.runet.edu> <373@bria>
Organization: pionier publications
Lines: 34

In article <373@bria> uunet!bria!mike (Michael Stefanik) writes:
>In article <1991Jan18.193234.216@rucs.runet.edu> rucs.runet.edu!dana (Dana Eckart) writes:
>>
>>Does there exist a piece of software (or is it even possible) to compile
>>a pipe?  In particular, suppose you had 
>>
>>	ls -l | fgrep "Dec" | cut -f 4
>>
>>is there anyway to compile the above pipeline so that the pieces can
>>communicate more quickly.  I am looking for a general solution, not
>>one that works only for the above example.
>
>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.  It is useful 
>to think of a pipe as a regular file, in which one process is writing to on
>one end, and another process is reading from on the other end.
>
But only to THINK of a pipe as a file, under unix there never IS a file.
The fact that pipes are implemented as files on certain other operating
systems probably lead to confusion someplace.

klaus
>-- 
>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 ..."


-- 
George Orwell was an Optimist