I'm proceeding slowly though the Lutz book "Programming Python". I'm in the section on named pipes. The script he uses has two functions: one for the child the other for the parent. You start the parent then the child:
python pipefifo.py #starts the parent file /tmp/pipefifo # shows that the file is a named pipe python pipefifo.py -child # starts a child process and writes to the pipe. This is done between two command windows - the first for the parent and the second for the child. Now, the child's write loop is infinite. So, I used Ctrl-C and stopped the process. But the parent's read loop is also infinite and without and exception, so it keeps reading from the pipe after the child is shutdown even though the lines are empty. So, I had to shut that down also. I then wanted to start the child process first and see what happened when I ran the parent. Well that works but the reads come out in random order. This got me wondering about the pipe file itself. So I tried to open it with leafpad and found that I couldn't. I guess these files can only be opened by processes? Okay. But exactly when does the system brand this file as a named pipe and how? -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list