Christoph at 06:54, 19 August 2006

2006-08-19T06:54:07Z

Christoph at 02:29, 18 August 2006

2006-08-18T02:29:20Z

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In computing, a '''named pipe''' (also '''[[FIFO]]''' for its behaviour) is an extension to the traditional [[pipeline (Linux)|pipe]] concept in [[Linux]] systems. A traditional pipe is "unnamed" because it exists anonymously and persists only for as long as the process is running. A named pipe is system-persistent and exists beyond the life of the process and must be "unlinked" or deleted once it is no longer being used. Processes generally attach to the named pipe (usually a file) to perform inter-process communication.

== Named pipes in Linux ==
Instead of a conventional, unnamed, shell pipeline, a named pipeline is explicitly created using [http://www.die.net/doc/linux/man/man1/mknod.1.html mknod] or [http://www.die.net/doc/linux/man/man1/mkfifo.1.html mkfifo], and two separate processes can access the pipeline by name.

For example, one can create a pipe and set up gzip to compress things piped to it
mkfifo pipe
gzip -9 -c < pipe > out
in a separate process, independently, one could perform
cat file > pipe
which would then perform the compression by gzip.

== See also ==
* [[mkfifo (command)|mkfifo]]

==External links==
* [http://www.tldp.org/LDP/lpg/node15.html The Linux Programmer's Guide: Named Pipes]
* [http://www2.linuxjournal.com/article/2156 Linux Journal: Introduction to Named Pipes]

[[Category:Linux Command Line Tools]]

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	== See also ==		== See also ==
		+	* [[Job control]]
	* [[mkfifo (command)\|mkfifo]]		* [[mkfifo (command)\|mkfifo]]

Named pipe - Revision history

Christoph at 06:54, 19 August 2006

Christoph at 02:29, 18 August 2006