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From: harrison@utfyzx.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: named pipes?
Message-ID: <1987Oct29.152901.2784@utfyzx.uucp>
Date: Thu, 29-Oct-87 15:29:01 EST
Article-I.D.: utfyzx.1987Oct29.152901.2784
Posted: Thu Oct 29 15:29:01 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Oct-87 02:02:19 EST
References: <15973@topaz.rutgers.edu>
Reply-To: harrison@utfyzx.UUCP (David Harrison)
Organization: Dept. of Physics, Univ. of Toronto
Lines: 22

In article <15973@topaz.rutgers.edu> hedrick@topaz.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick) writes:
> I keep tripping over code in our kernels that talks about FIFO's and
> named pipes.  ...
> I am unable to find any mentions of FIFO or named pipes anywhere in our 
> System V release 2 documentation ...
> I assume this is a System V feature ...

FIFO's were introduced with System III, and being a *good thing*
have survived into System V.n.  You're right about it not being
in BSD, which is their loss (ahem).  You're also right about the
lack of documentation although it is used in all sorts of places,
including lp(1).  Rather than get into all the nitty-gritty, I
recommend starting with Marc Rochkind's "Advanced UNIX Programming"
(Prentice-Hall), in which these critters are discussed quite well in
Chapter VII.  Also, if people have access to back issues of Hewlett-
Packard's "Communicator" series, Mark Surles has a nice article
in the March 1985 edition; he begins by saying almost the same things
quoted above.

-- 
    David Harrison, Dept. of Physics, Univ. of Toronto
    {ihnp4,utzoo}!utgpu!utfyzx!harrison