[plug] Named pipe. Solution to programming problem?

[Mike Holland]

James Devenish wrote:
> Hi,
>
>>Basically I want the list to update when ever a program tries to access 
>>it (to keep resources down to a minimum) and I can't modify every 
>>program so that they run a program every time they read the file.
>>I am more clear now?

Much! :-)

>   *However*, a named pipe is opened differently
> from a regular file, 

Pardon? How?  Are you thinking of sockets?
The only problem I can think of is that reads can block, which the 
reading program may not expect.

> POSIX STREAMS ... allows a
> regular file to be backed by a programme. 

isn't that what a named pipe does?