named pipes, sql loader and ftps

[Ryan]

I was flipping through Tim Gorman's Data Warehouse and he has a short section on using named pipes to kick off sql loader when you send files to your data warehouse with ftps.   Ive never used named pipes in Unix? Does it depend on the shell(I only know korn).   Anyone do this? With this method you can start doing your sqlloader while still recieving your file. Anyone ever do this with automated file reciept? Files come in over night and the sqlloader gets kicked off?