Pipe Gotchas

Here's a complete example that doesn't work! The child reads one byte at a time from the pipe and prints it out - but we never see the message! Can you see why?

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <signal.h>

int main() {
    int fd[2];
    pipe(fd);
    //You must read from fd[0] and write from fd[1]
    printf("Reading from %d, writing to %d\n", fd[0], fd[1]);

    pid_t p = fork();
    if (p > 0) {
        /* I have a child therefore I am the parent*/
        write(fd[1],"Hi Child!",9);

        /*don't forget your child*/
        wait(NULL);
    } else {
        char buf;
        int bytesread;
        // read one byte at a time.
        while ((bytesread = read(fd[0], &buf, 1)) > 0) {
            putchar(buf);
        }
    }
    return 0;
}

The parent sends the bytes H,i,(space),C...! into the pipe (this may block if the pipe is full). The child starts reading the pipe one byte at a time. In the above case, the child process will read and print each character. However it never leaves the while loop! When there are no characters left to read it simply blocks and waits for more.

The call putchar writes the characters out but we never flush the stdout buffer. i.e. We have transferred the message from one process to another but it has not yet been printed. To see the message we could flush the buffer e.g. fflush(stdout) (or printf("\n") if the output is going to a terminal). A better solution would also exit the loop by checking for an end-of-message marker,

        while ((bytesread = read(fd[0], &buf, 1)) > 0) {
            putchar(buf);
            if (buf == '!') break; /* End of message */
        }

And the message will be flushed to the terminal when the child process exits.

Want to use pipes with printf and scanf? Use fdopen!

POSIX file descriptors are simple integers 0,1,2,3... At the C library level, C wraps these with a buffer and useful functions like printf and scanf, so we that we can easily print or parse integers, strings etc. If you already have a file descriptor then you can 'wrap' it yourself into a FILE pointer using fdopen :

#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <fcntl.h>

int main() {
    char *name="Fred";
    int score = 123;
    int filedes = open("mydata.txt", "w", O_CREAT, S_IWUSR | S_IRUSR);

    FILE *f = fdopen(filedes, "w");
    fprintf(f, "Name:%s Score:%d\n", name, score);
    fclose(f);

For writing to files this is unnecessary - just use fopen which does the same as open and fdopen However for pipes, we already have a file descriptor - so this is great time to use fdopen!

Here's a complete example using pipes that almost works! Can you spot the error? Hint: The parent never prints anything!

#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    int fh[2];
    pipe(fh);
    FILE *reader = fdopen(fh[0], "r");
    FILE *writer = fdopen(fh[1], "w");
    pid_t p = fork();
    if (p > 0) {
        int score;
        fscanf(reader, "Score %d", &score);
        printf("The child says the score is %d\n", score);
    } else {
        fprintf(writer, "Score %d", 10 + 10);
        fflush(writer);
    }
    return 0;
}

Note the (unnamed) pipe resource will disappear once both the child and parent have exited. In the above example the child will send the bytes and the parent will receive the bytes from the pipe. However, no end-of-line character is ever sent, so fscanf will continue to ask for bytes because it is waiting for the end of the line i.e. it will wait forever! The fix is to ensure we send a newline character, so that fscanf will return.

change:   fprintf(writer, "Score %d", 10 + 10);
to:       fprintf(writer, "Score %d\n", 10 + 10);

So do we need to fflush too?

Yes, if you want your bytes to be sent to the pipe immediately! At the beginning of this course we assumed that file streams are always line buffered i.e. the C library will flush its buffer everytime you send a newline character. Actually this is only true for terminal streams - for other filestreams the C library attempts to improve performance by only flushing when it's internal buffer is full or the file is closed.

When do I need two pipes?

If you need to send data to and from a child asynchronously, then two pipes are required (one for each direction). Otherwise the child would attempt to read its own data intended for the parent (and vice versa)!

Closing pipes gotchas

Processes receive the signal SIGPIPE when no process is listening! From the pipe(2) man page -

If all file descriptors referring to the read end of a pipe have been closed,
 then a write(2) will cause a SIGPIPE signal to be generated for the calling process. 

Tip: Notice only the writer (not a reader) can use this signal. To inform the reader that a writer is closing their end of the pipe, you could write your own special byte (e.g. 0xff) or a message ( "Bye!")

Here's an example of catching this signal that does not work! Can you see why?

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <signal.h>

void no_one_listening(int signal) {
    write(1, "No one is listening!\n", 21);
}

int main() {
    signal(SIGPIPE, no_one_listening);
    int filedes[2];

    pipe(filedes);
    pid_t child = fork();
    if (child > 0) { 
        /* I must be the parent. Close the listening end of the pipe */
        /* I'm not listening anymore!*/
        close(filedes[0]);
    } else {
        /* Child writes messages to the pipe */
        write(filedes[1], "One", 3);
        sleep(2);
        // Will this write generate SIGPIPE ?
        write(filedes[1], "Two", 3);
        write(1, "Done\n", 5);
    }
    return 0;
}

The mistake in above code is that there is still a reader for the pipe! The child still has the pipe's first file descriptor open and remember the specification? All readers must be closed.

When forking, It is common practice to close the unnecessary (unused) end of each pipe in the child and parent process. For example the parent might close the reading end and the child might close the writing end (and vice versa if you have two pipes)

What is filling up the pipe? What happens when the pipe becomes full?

A pipe gets filled up when the writer writes too much to the pipe without the reader reading any of it. When the pipes become full, all writes fail until a read occurs. Even then, a write may partial fail if the pipe has a little bit of space left but not enough for the entire message.

To avoid this, usually two things are done. Either increase the size of the pipe. Or more commonly, fix your program design so that the pipe is constantly being read from.

Are pipes process safe?

Yes! Pipe write are atomic up to the size of the pipe. Meaning that if two processes try to write to the same pipe, the kernel has internal mutexes with the pipe that it will lock, do the write, and return. The only gotcha is when the pipe is about to become full. If two processes are trying to write and the pipe can only satisfy a partial write, that pipe write is not atomic -- be careful about that!

The lifetime of pipes

Unnamed pipes (the kind we've seen up to this point) live in memory (do not take up any disk space) and are a simple and efficient form of inter-process communication (IPC) that is useful for streaming data and simple messages. Once all processes have closed, the pipe resources are freed.

An alternative to unamed pipes is named pipes created using mkfifo.

Named Pipes

How do I create named pipes?

From the command line: mkfifo From C: int mkfifo(const char *pathname, mode_t mode);

You give it the path name and the operation mode, it will be ready to go! Named pipes take up no space on the disk. What the operating system is essentially telling you when you have a named pipe is that it will create an unnamed pipe that refers to the named pipe, and that's it! There is no additional magic. This is just for programming convenience if processes are started without forking (meaning that there would be no way to get the file descriptor to the child process for an unnamed pipe)

Why is my pipe hanging?

Reads and writes hang on Named Pipes until there is at least one reader and one writer, take this

1$ mkfifo fifo
1$ echo Hello > fifo
# This will hang until I do this on another terminal or another process
2$ cat fifo
Hello

Any open is called on a named pipe the kernel blocks until another process calls the opposite open. Meaning, echo calls open(.., O_RDONLY) but that blocks until cat calls open(.., O_WRONLY), then the programs are allowed to continue.

Race condition with named pipes.

What is wrong with the following program?

//Program 1

int main(){
    int fd = open("fifo", O_RDWR | O_TRUNC);
    write(fd, "Hello!", 6);
    close(fd);
    return 0;
}

//Program 2
int main() {
    char buffer[7];
    int fd = open("fifo", O_RDONLY);
    read(fd, buffer, 6);
    buffer[6] = '\0';
    printf("%s\n", buffer);
    return 0;
}

This may never print hello because of a race condition. Since you opened the pipe in the first process under both permissions, open won't wait for a reader because you told the operating system that you are a reader! Sometimes it looks like it works because the execution of the code looks something like this.

Process 1	Process 2
open(O_RDWR) & write()
	open(O_RDONLY) & read()
close() & exit()
	print() & exit()

Sometimes it won't

Process 1	Process 2
open(O_RDWR) & write()
close() & exit()	(Named pipe is destroyed)
(Blocks indefinitely)	open(O_RDONLY)