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.TH "pipectl" "1" "2024-10-13"
.PP
.SH NAME
.PP
pipectl - a simple named pipe management utility
.PP
.SH SYNOPSIS
.PP
\fBpipectl\fR [-h,-o,-i,-n N,-p P,-f,-l]
.PP
.SH DESCRIPTION
.PP
\fBpipectl\fR is a tool to create and manage short-lived named pipes that can be
used to feed stdin to a longer-lived program from elsewhere in the system
without needing a complex IPC mechanism such as UNIX domain sockets.\&
.PP
\fBpipectl\fR is intended to be used in pairs, one call to \fBpipectl\fR opens the pipe
(\fB-o\fR) and feeds it to a process, and all others with the same name or path will
write to the stdin of that process:
.PP
.RS 4
$ pipectl -o | daemon-process
.PP
$ echo "do-the-thing --color red" | pipectl -i
.PP
$ echo "quit" | pipectl -i
.PP
.RE
The daemon process process will never observe an EOF on its stdin.\& \fBpipectl\fR
will instead block until another input pipe (\fB-i\fR) is openend and will then feed
the stdin of that process to the daemon process asynchronously.\&
.PP
When the daemon process exits or closes its stdin, \fBpipectl\fR will clean up and
remove the created named pipe automatically.\&
.PP
.SH OPTIONS
.PP
\fB-h, --help\fR
.RS 4
Show help message and exit.\&
.PP
.RE
\fB-o, --out\fR
.RS 4
Create a named pipe and print its contents to stdout.\&
.PP
.RE
\fB-i, --in\fR
.RS 4
Write stdin to an open named pipe created with \fB-o\fR.\&
.PP
.RE
\fB-n N, --name N\fR
.RS 4
Create named pipe with a custom name.\& See \fBPATHS\fR.\&
.PP
.RE
\fB-p P, --path P\fR
.RS 4
Create a names pipe at a custom path.\& See \fBPATHS\fR.\&
.PP
.RE
\fB-f, --force\fR
.RS 4
Force overwrite an existing named pipe event if it already exists (only usable with \fB-o\fR).\&
.PP
.RE
\fB-l, --lock\fR
.RS 4
Use \fBflock\fR(2) to synchronize writes to the pipe (only usable with \fB-i\fR).\&
.PP
.RE
.SH PATHS
.PP
By default, \fBpipectl\fR will create the named pipe in a temporary directory
(\fBTMP\fR).\& The first available directory of these will be used:
.PP
.PD 0
.IP \(bu 4
\fB$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR\fR
.IP \(bu 4
\fB$TMPDIR\fR
.IP \(bu 4
/tmp
.PD
.PP
The resulting path of the named pipe is as follows:
.PP
\fBdefault\fR
.RS 4
\fBTMP\fR/pipectl.\&\fBUID\fR.\&pipe
.PP
.RE
\fBwith --name NAME\fR
.RS 4
\fBTMP\fR/pipectl.\&\fBUID\fR.\&\fBNAME\fR.\&pipe
.PP
.RE
\fBwith --path PATH\fR
.RS 4
\fBPATH\fR
.PP
.RE
where \fBUID\fR is the real user id of the \fBpipectl\fR process (see \fBgetuid\fR(3)).\&
.PP
.SH AUTHORS
.PP
Maintained by Ferdinand Bachmann <ferdinand.\&bachmann@yrlf.\&at>.\& More information on \fBpipectl\fR can be found at <https://github.\&com/Ferdi265/pipectl>.\&
.PP
.SH SEE ALSO
.PP
\fBpipectl\fR(1) \fBmkfifo\fR(1) \fBflock\fR(2) \fBgetuid\fR(3)