1MKFIFO(1P) POSIX Programmer's Manual MKFIFO(1P)
2
6 This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux
7 implementation of this interface may differ (consult the corresponding
8 Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may
9 not be implemented on Linux.
10
12 mkfifo - make FIFO special files
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15 mkfifo [-m mode] file...
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18 The mkfifo utility shall create the FIFO special files specified by the
19 operands, in the order specified.
20 For each file operand, the mkfifo utility shall perform actions equiva‐
22 lent to the mkfifo() function defined in the System Interfaces volume
23 of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, called with the following arguments:
24 1. The file operand is used as the path argument.
26 2. The value of the bitwise-inclusive OR of S_IRUSR, S_IWUSR, S_IRGRP,
28 S_IWGRP, S_IROTH, and S_IWOTH is used as the mode argument. (If the
29 -m option is specified, the value of the mkfifo() mode argument is
30 unspecified, but the FIFO shall at no time have permissions less
31 restrictive than the -m mode option-argument.)
32
34 The mkfifo utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of
35 IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.
36 The following option shall be supported:
38 -m mode
40 Set the file permission bits of the newly-created FIFO to the
41 specified mode value. The mode option-argument shall be the same
42 as the mode operand defined for the chmod utility. In the sym‐
43 bolic_mode strings, the op characters '+' and '-' shall be
44 interpreted relative to an assumed initial mode of a= rw.
45
48 The following operand shall be supported:
49 file A pathname of the FIFO special file to be created.
51
54 Not used.
55
57 None.
58
60 The following environment variables shall affect the execution of
61 mkfifo:
62 LANG Provide a default value for the internationalization variables
64 that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions volume of
65 IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 8.2, Internationalization Vari‐
66 ables for the precedence of internationalization variables used
67 to determine the values of locale categories.)
68 LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all
70 the other internationalization variables.
71 LC_CTYPE
73 Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of
74 bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as
75 opposed to multi-byte characters in arguments).
76 LC_MESSAGES
78 Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format
79 and contents of diagnostic messages written to standard error.
80 NLSPATH
82 Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of
83 LC_MESSAGES .
84
87 Default.
88
90 Not used.
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93 The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
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96 None.
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99 None.
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102 The following exit values shall be returned:
103 0 All the specified FIFO special files were created successfully.
105 >0 An error occurred.
107
110 Default.
111 The following sections are informative.
113
115 None.
116
118 None.
119
121 This utility was added to permit shell applications to create FIFO spe‐
122 cial files.
123 The -m option was added to control the file mode, for consistency with
125 the similar functionality provided by the mkdir utility.
126 Early proposals included a -p option similar to the mkdir -p option
128 that created intermediate directories leading up to the FIFO specified
129 by the final component. This was removed because it is not commonly
130 needed and is not common practice with similar utilities.
131 The functionality of mkfifo is described substantially through a refer‐
133 ence to the mkfifo() function in the System Interfaces volume of
134 IEEE Std 1003.1-2001. For example, by default, the mode of the FIFO
135 file is affected by the file mode creation mask in accordance with the
136 specified behavior of the mkfifo() function. In this way, there is less
137 duplication of effort required for describing details of the file cre‐
138 ation.
139
141 None.
142
144 chmod(), umask(), the System Interfaces volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001,
145 mkfifo()
146
148 Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form
149 from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for Information Technology
150 -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base
151 Specifications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Institute of
152 Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the
153 event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and
154 The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard
155 is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online
156 at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .
157IEEE/The Open Group 2003 MKFIFO(1P)