How to avoid echo closing FIFO named pipes? - Funny behavior of Unix FIFOs

Question

I want to output some data to a pipe and have the other process do something to the data line by line. Here is a toy example:

mkfifo pipe
cat pipe&
cat &         


        

Answer 1

Honestly, the best way I was able to get this to work was by using socat, which basically connections two sockets.

mkfifo foo
socat $PWD/foo /dev/tty

Now in a new term, you can:

echo "I am in your term!" > foo
# also (surprisingly) this works
clear > foo

The downside is you need socat, which isn't a basic util everyone gets. The plus side is, I can't find something that doesn't work... I am able to print colors, tee to the fifo, clear the screen, etc. It is as if you slave the whole terminal.