Regular pipe vs. Named Pipe
Chris Torek
torek at elf.ee.lbl.gov
Sun Jun 9 06:02:53 AEST 1991
In article <1991Jun7.195953.27744 at digi.lonestar.org>
cfoughty at digi.lonestar.org (Cy Foughty) writes:
>What are the differences between a regular pipe and a named pipe?
The main difference is that one has a name and one does not. The only
other substantive difference is that a regular pipe can only be `half-
open' when it is shutting down (either all readers or all writers have
closed their descriptors, and none will ever gain a new one), while a
named pipe is half-open at the beginning (only a reader, or only a
writer, exists). This makes named pipes more complicated.
>Which type of pipe is faster and by how much?
>Which is faster, a named pipe or a message queue?
>Does a named pipe always go to disk or only when the allocated
>memory is exhausted?
All of these are implementation-dependent. The only way to find out
is to try it on each implementation (or read the implementation's
source, though source-based performance analysis is quite a trick).
--
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Lawrence Berkeley Lab CSE/EE (+1 415 486 5427)
Berkeley, CA Domain: torek at ee.lbl.gov
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