Os Process Management Questions Medium
A pipe is a form of inter-process communication (IPC) mechanism in operating systems that allows two or more processes to communicate with each other by creating a unidirectional flow of data between them. It acts as a conduit or channel through which data can be transferred from one process to another.
In a pipe, one process writes data to the pipe, which is then read by another process. The pipe can be thought of as a virtual file that exists only in memory and has a fixed size. It has two ends, known as the read end and the write end.
To use a pipe for process communication, the pipe is typically created using system calls provided by the operating system. The process that wants to communicate with another process creates the pipe and then forks a child process. The child process inherits the pipe from the parent process.
The parent process can then write data to the write end of the pipe using the appropriate system call, while the child process can read the data from the read end of the pipe using another system call. This allows the two processes to exchange information or share data.
Pipes are commonly used in scenarios where there is a need for communication between two related processes, such as a producer-consumer relationship. They provide a simple and efficient way for processes to exchange data without the need for complex synchronization mechanisms.
It is important to note that pipes are unidirectional, meaning data can only flow in one direction. If bidirectional communication is required, two pipes can be used, one for each direction of communication.
Overall, pipes are a fundamental mechanism in process management that enable efficient and synchronized communication between processes in an operating system.