> Nitpick: the output type of one command and the input type of > the next command in the pipeline has to match, not every > command.
i think this is wrong. there's no requirement that the programs participating in a pipeline are compatable at all; that's the beauty of pipes. you can do things that were not envisioned at the time the programs were written. > To go beyond simple char streams, one can for example build a > s-expr pipeline: a stream of self identifying objects of a > few types (chars, numbers, symbols, lists, vectors). In Q > (from kx.com) over an IPC connection you can send strings, > vectors, dictionaries, tables, or arbitray Q expressions. But > there the model is more of a client/server. or ntfs where files are databases. not sure if streams can look the same way. - erik
