🚀 go-pugleaf

cbusch@ub.d.umn.edu (Chris) writes:

>    Apparantly MSDOS multitasks with the use of the pipe "|".  Is this
> true?  How does the | really work?  For example: "type this.txt | more"
> has 'type' and 'more' being ran simultaneously (apparantly).  How is
> this so?

It is not so -- what's really happening is that DOS is writing the
output to a temp file, reading input from the temp file, then deleting
it.  To use your own example, "type this.txt | more" is actually doing:

     type this.txt > tempfil.fil
     more < tempfil.fil
     del tempfil.fil

DOS obviously uses different names than "tempfil.fil", usually something
looking like "2DA472AF" or some other such unique nonsense.  You can
verify this behavior by running an unerase program in the directory
pointed to by your TEMP environment variable (or the root of your boot
drive if you don't have a TEMP variable).

Hope this clarifies the issue.

Jon

=============================================================================
                   Jon Freivald ( jaf%jaflrn@uunet.UU.NET )
	 Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it.
=============================================================================