setup will have to wait :[

[Robert Collins]

I just ran into another apparently missing function - mkfifo. I've
thought up a way to implement this - but I'd like some feedback from
someone with more machines that openBSD & win2000.

what's the expected result of

mkfifo foo.
cat foo > 1 &
cat foo > 2 &
echo "test" > foo

should I code fifo's so that the result of that test will be
cat foo > 2 returns a read error (file locked), or so that multiple
reads do occur?

It's much the same to me either way - I just don't know the expected
behaviour of a fifo in that circumstance.

For those interested in the "how" side, I'm planning on avoiding named
pipes (due to the horror stories I've heard about win 9x).
Instead I plan on using a manual reset named event object and a named
mutex. The mutex will control access, and the event object will control
syncronisation. (I.e if process 2 opens & tries to write, it will
successfuly get the mutex, and then wait for the event object to be
pulsed. It will then "write" the data. The recieving process will
recieve the mutex when the first process completes the write. That then
gets repeated.

For data transfer, I was thinking of using shared named memory:anyone
know of caveats for that on win9x?

Rob.