What are named pipes?

Question

What are they and how do they work?

Context happens to be SQL Server

Answer 1

Pipes are a way of streaming data between applications. Under Linux I use this all the time to stream the output of one process into another. This is anonymous because the destination app has no idea where that input-stream comes from. It doesn't need to.

A named pipe is just a way of actively hooking onto an existing pipe and hoovering-up its data. It's for situations where the provider doesn't know what clients will be eating the data.