[plug] Named pipe. Solution to programming problem?

[James Devenish]

Hi,

In message <419C6C98.7040607 at tigris.org>
on Thu, Nov 18, 2004 at 05:34:16PM +0800, Timothy White wrote:
> I want to have a program 'open' a file and read in the contents.

Okay...I assume you know how to do this.

> The contents of the file need to change easily and at any time.

Okay...you want to write to the file.

> The contents of the file are generated from a number of different
> sources.

Okay...so you may need some sort of locking mechanism.

> 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?

What are you trying to say?

> I don't want the program always running, only when called.

Okay...don't call it unless you want it.

> I don't want to run currently_active_computers every 5 seconds to
> ensure that the list of active computers is up to date.

So...what *is* keeping the list up-to-date, then?