Program source

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/wait.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <string.h>

int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    int pipefd[2];
    pid_t cpid;
    char buf;

    if (argc != 2) {
        fprintf(stderr, Usage: %s <string>
, argv[0]);
        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }

    if (pipe(pipefd) == −1) {
        perror(pipe);
        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }

    cpid = fork();
    if (cpid == −1) {
        perror(fork);
        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
    }

    if (cpid == 0) {    /* Child reads from pipe */
        close(pipefd[1]);          /* Close unused write end */

        while (read(pipefd[0], &buf, 1) > 0)
            write(STDOUT_FILENO, &buf, 1);

        write(STDOUT_FILENO, 
, 1);
        close(pipefd[0]);
        _exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);

    } else {            /* Parent writes argv[1] to pipe */
        close(pipefd[0]);          /* Close unused read end */
        write(pipefd[1], argv[1], strlen(argv[1]));
        close(pipefd[1]);          /* Reader will see EOF */
        wait(NULL);                /* Wait for child */
        exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
    }
}

I/O on pipes and FIFOs

The only difference between pipes and FIFOs is the manner in which they are created and opened. Once these tasks have been accomplished, I/O on pipes and FIFOs has exactly the same semantics.

If a process attempts to read from an empty pipe, then read(2) will block until data is available. If a process attempts to write to a full pipe (see below), then write(2) blocks until sufficient data has been read from the pipe to allow the write to complete. Nonblocking I/O is possible by using the fcntl(2) F_SETFL operation to enable the O_NONBLOCK open file status flag.

The communication channel provided by a pipe is a byte stream: there is no concept of message boundaries.

If all file descriptors referring to the write end of a pipe have been closed, then an attempt to read(2) from the pipe will see end-of-file (read(2) will return 0). If all file descriptors referring to the read end of a pipe have been closed, then a write(2) will cause a SIGPIPE signal to be generated for the calling process. If the calling process is ignoring this signal, then write(2) fails with the error EPIPE. An application that uses pipe(2) and fork(2) should use suitable close(2) calls to close unnecessary duplicate file descriptors; this ensures that end-of-file and SIGPIPE/EPIPE are delivered when appropriate.

It is not possible to apply lseek(2) to a pipe.

Pipe capacity

A pipe has a limited capacity. If the pipe is full, then a write(2) will block or fail, depending on whether the O_NONBLOCK flag is set (see below). Different implementations have different limits for the pipe capacity. Applications should not rely on a particular capacity: an application should be designed so that a reading process consumes data as soon as it is available, so that a writing process does not remain blocked.

In Linux versions before 2.6.11, the capacity of a pipe was the same as the system page size (e.g., 4096 bytes on i386). Since Linux 2.6.11, the pipe capacity is 16 pages (i.e., 65,536 bytes in a system with a page size of 4096 bytes). Since Linux 2.6.35, the default pipe capacity is 16 pages, but the capacity can be queried and set using the fcntl(2) F_GETPIPE_SZ and F_SETPIPE_SZ operations. See fcntl(2) for more information.

The following ioctl(2) operation, which can be applied to a file descriptor that refers to either end of a pipe, places a count of the number of unread bytes in the pipe in the int buffer pointed to by the final argument of the call:

ioctl(fd, FIONREAD, &nbytes);

The FIONREAD operation is not specified in any standard, but is provided on many implementations.

/proc files

On Linux, the following files control how much memory can be used for pipes:

Before Linux 4.9, some bugs affected the handling of the pipe-user-pages-soft and pipe-user-pages-hard limits; see BUGS.

PIPE_BUF

POSIX.1 says that write(2)s of less than PIPE_BUF bytes must be atomic: the output data is written to the pipe as a contiguous sequence. Writes of more than PIPE_BUF bytes may be nonatomic: the kernel may interleave the data with data written by other processes. POSIX.1 requires PIPE_BUF to be at least 512 bytes. (On Linux, PIPE_BUF is 4096 bytes.) The precise semantics depend on whether the file descriptor is nonblocking (O_NONBLOCK), whether there are multiple writers to the pipe, and on n, the number of bytes to be written:

Open file status flags

The only open file status flags that can be meaningfully applied to a pipe or FIFO are O_NONBLOCK and O_ASYNC.

Setting the O_ASYNC flag for the read end of a pipe causes a signal (SIGIO by default) to be generated when new input becomes available on the pipe. The target for delivery of signals must be set using the fcntl(2) F_SETOWN command. On Linux, O_ASYNC is supported for pipes and FIFOs only since kernel 2.6.

Portability notes

On some systems (but not Linux), pipes are bidirectional: data can be transmitted in both directions between the pipe ends. POSIX.1 requires only unidirectional pipes. Portable applications should avoid reliance on bidirectional pipe semantics.

BUGS

Before Linux 4.9, some bugs affected the handling of the pipe-user-pages-soft and pipe-user-pages-hard limits when using the fcntl(2) F_SETPIPE_SZ operation to change a pipe_zsingle_quotesz_s capacity:

Before Linux 4.9, bugs similar to points (1) and (3) could also occur when the kernel allocated memory for a new pipe buffer; that is, when calling pipe(2) and when opening a previously unopened FIFO.