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Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 13:03:26 +1000
From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
Message-Id: <199607190303.NAA30974@godzilla.zeta.org.au>
To: markd@Grizzly.COM, wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu
Subject: Re: kern/1397: can't send to a pipe
Cc: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@freebsd.org, bugs@freefall.freebsd.org
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>Reporting FIFO would probably be better than SOCK, at least that wouldn't
>lead people to do the wrong thing because they think its a socket.

>Given all of this, the definition of S_ISFIFO probably is wrong as well:

>#define	S_ISFIFO(m)	(((m) & 0170000) == 0010000 || \
>			 ((m) & 0170000) == 0140000)	/* fifo or socket */

This is a kludge for nameless pipes being implemented as sockets.  There
was no way to distinguish between a nameless pipe and a socket, at least
using the stat classifition macros or mode bits.  Portable code will
have to deal with this for years.  It's still in 2.1.5 and it's probably
in many other BSD4.4-derived systems.

The above #define should be changed soon.  I'm a bit worried about new
ports and libraries being used with old kernels.

Bruce