[plug] Named pipe. Solution to programming problem?

[Timothy White]

I want to have a program 'open' a file and read in the contents. The 
contents of the file need to change easily and at any time. The contents 
of the file are generated from a number of different sources.

Q: Can I have a program so that it is run each time a 'file' is open and 
the stdout of the program is feed through as the file contents?

e.g. less opens ~/pipes/active_computers and a program called 
currently_active_computers is run giving the below output[1] which then 
displayed using less.

I don't want the program always running, only when called.
E.g. I don't want to run currently_active_computers every 5 seconds to 
ensure that the list of active computers is up to date.

Thanks
Tim
[1]---
student01
student02
student03
student06
student08
teacher03
teacher08
public576
public030
public234
---
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