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From: asw@rlvd.UUCP (Antony Williams)
Newsgroups: net.sources
Subject: /dev/stdin: credit where credit may be due?
Message-ID: <595@rlvd.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 25-Jun-85 20:05:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: rlvd.595
Posted: Tue Jun 25 20:05:48 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 28-Jun-85 00:47:10 EDT
Reply-To: asw@rlvd.UUCP (Antony Williams)
Organization: Rutherford Appleton Laboratories, Atlas Buildings, U.K.
Lines: 23
Xpath: warwick ubu


Apologies to readers who feel that messages such as this should be
kept out of net.sources - flames to /dev/null please.

Several implementations of /dev/stdin, /dev/fdXX etc have recently
appeared.  It is worth pointing out that Jeff Smith (warwick)
described exactly such a driver about two years ago at the inaugural
meeting of the UKUUG, held at Westfield College in London.

Jeff noted two main points in retrospect:

	freopen will close the file first, so that
	freopen(argv[1],"r", stdin) where argv[1]=="/dev/stdin"
	will not work as expected!

	opening a /dev/fdXX file with a different access type
	from that previously used may not have the desired effect.

Apologies to Rob Pike if he did get there first!
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