CompuServe Messages

#Using PIPE:

    26-Apr-95 07:29:27
Sb: #46646-#Using PIPE:
Fm: Jim Butterfield 73624,14
To: Andre Page 74366,3517
The thing about PIPE: is that it has a limited capacity, deliberately. Send a long document or file to it, and it will quickly become full and tell the sender to hold back further data. As data is taken out of the PIPE: space becomes available and then sender is allowed to send more to "top up" the data area. So it operates generally this way: if the sender is FASTER than the receiving program, the sender is slowed. On the other hand, if the sender is not faster, it can always send at full speed. Example: say you have a program that produces HUGE output, from which you wanted to extract only certain data. If the program just put its output to RAM disk, it might run you out of memory. If the program put its output to hard disk, you'd likely have space, but you might slow things down more than you would be comfortable with (and need to clean up the HD file later). So .. you send the program's output to PIPE: and have your extracting/scanning program read that file. –Jim