File system name space

[Arnold Robbins]

Submitted-by: arnold at audiofax.com (Arnold Robbins)

>In article <14137 at cs.utexas.edu> arnold at audiofax.com writes:
>> 	nohup join <(prog1) <(prog2) > joined-output-of-progs-1-and-2 &
>
>> and then log out?  The temporary fifos will still be around when the
>> program finally exits and the shell won't be around to clean them up.

In article <14175 at cs.utexas.edu> you write:
>Submitted-by: peter at ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva)
>You'd have to nohup the whole thing in either case because you'll clobber
>prog1 and prog2 when you log out. So this is a non-problem.

I didn't think about that, but it's still a problem.  Consider:

	nohup join <(nohup prog1) <(nohup prog2) > joined-output &

I admit to the feasibility of using temporary fifos for process substitution.
It is more work than /dev/fd, but doable.  /dev/fd, though, does make the
whole thing much cleaner.  And it still provides things like

	$ ln -s /dev/stdin foo.c
	$ cc foo.c
	main () { printf("hello, world\n");
	^D
	$ a.out
	hello, world

I'm not on a crusade here or anything --- I simply think /dev/fd is a neat
idea and I'd like to see it become commonplace.  I don't know how much more
there is to say on the subject...
-- 
Arnold Robbins				AudioFAX, Inc. | Laundry increases
2000 Powers Ferry Road, #200 / Marietta, GA. 30067     | exponentially in the
INTERNET: arnold at audiofax.com Phone:   +1 404 933 7612 | number of children.
UUCP:	  emory!audfax!arnold Fax-box: +1 404 618 4581 |   -- Miriam Robbins

Volume-Number: Volume 22, Number 17