Re: [PLUG] Linux FIFOs

Jeff Abrahamson <jeff@purple.com> · Fri, 11 Apr 2003 22:41:43 -0400

On Fri, Apr 11, 2003 at 04:13:34PM -0400, Michael C. Toren wrote:
>   [13 lines, 89 words, 679 characters]  Top characters: _etnasou
> 
> > I was under the impression pine had simply been told to do a |cat
> > <sig FIFO> and dump it in the editor.
> 
> If pine could be configured to execute an arbitrary program and use it's
> output as the value of the signature, there'd be no need for a FIFO :-)
> My guess is that pine is configured to read the signature from the
> ~/.signature file, which has been replaced with a FIFO.

Well, if that's the deal, just set up this program, running as a
daemon:

    while(1) {
        write a new sig to .signature.new
        mv .signature.new .signature
        sleep 1
    }

You get a new sig once a second. The file .signature is always
atomically a single signature, file system takes care of that for you
in the mv. You'll get a lot of sigs you never use, but your machine
can probably handle this overhead with ease. It's inelegant, of
course, and Gabriel's solution is better and more elegant.

Of course, as mct points out, Gabriel's solution might require a
migration to mutt. This might, by some, be viewed as another reason
why Gabriel's solution is better. ;-)

-- 
 Jeff

 Jeff Abrahamson  <http://www.purple.com/jeff/>
 GPG fingerprint: 1A1A BA95 D082 A558 A276  63C6 16BF 8C4C 0D1D AE4B