Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jpl-devvax!lwall
From: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Re: -T and named pipes
Message-ID: <11485@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Date: 19 Feb 91 00:27:19 GMT
References: <521@rufus.UUCP> <11483@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> <527@rufus.UUCP>
Reply-To: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Lines: 26

In article <527@rufus.UUCP> singer@ibm.com (David Singer) writes:
: In article <11483@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall) writes:
: >
: >That would be fascist.  What if you want to use -T or -B to find out whether
: >a pipe is returning text or binary data?
: 
: Is it possible for the nature of the data being returned to change from text
: to binary and back again?  And wouldn't reading data from the pipe consume
: it (or is it possible to reread the first part)? 

Yes.  Yes (no).

: >Better would be to hide the -T/B behind a !-p, in my hubristic opinion.
: 
: After I figured out what was hanging up the script, I did modify it to skip
: pipes (hey, it was only the second perl program I'd typed in!).  I was just
: surprised to have an example from the book act so strangely.

I suspect that FIFOs should ordinarily be banned from ordinary directories.
Perl is not the only program that will have such difficulties.

: I freely admit I'm a Perl novice and pretty much a rookie at Unix in general.

I freely admit to coming from a non-FIFO culture.

Larry