mark@applix.UUCP (Mark Fox) (11/16/87)
I just heard about this beast from someone with SVR3 sources. Apparently,
AT&T implemented this as a replacement for FIFOs but in their wisdom decided
not to document it.
Since we have processes that communicate with other processes on the
same machine as well as with others on remote machines, we need the
equivalent of Unix-domain or loop-back sockets. As you might expect,
we need to be able to multiplex input from local and remote processes. Now
an idle process could pend reading its FIFO and field SIGPOLLs. But a "more
elegant" approach, it would seem, is for a process to pend on a blocking
select (er, poll :-) system call awaiting messages from any process, local or
remote, that wants to talk to it. This is where a STREAMS pipe driver fits in.
Is the latter approach reasonable? Are people porting the pipe driver?
Is anybody willing to provide me with or post documentation on how to use it?
I have the Streams Programmer's Guide but I don't have a Unix source
license :-(
Thanx!
--
Mark Fox
Applix Inc., 112 Turnpike Road, Westboro, MA 01581, (617) 870-0300
uucp: {ames,rutgers}!harvard!m2c!applix!mark