Difference between revisions 472473921 and 537402151 on enwiki

The '''plumber''', in the [[Plan 9 from Bell Labs]] and [[Inferno (operating system)|Inferno]] operating systems, is a mechanism for reliable uni- or multicast inter-process communication, somewhat similar to [[Cut, copy, and paste|copy and paste]].

The plumber is a program which handles all the messaging when programs make plumbing messages. Unlike copy and paste, where the user specifies where the destination of some data should go, the plumber interprets the message on the basis of plumbing rules to determine it of formatted textual messages.  It uses the Plan 9 network file protocol, [[9p]], rather than a special-purpose IPC mechanism.

Any number of clients may listen on a named port (a file) for messages.  Ports and port routing are defined by '''plumbing rules.''' These rules are dynamic.  Each listening program receives a copy of matching messages. For example, if the data '''/sys/lib/plumb/basic''' is plumbed with the standard rules, it is sent to the '''edit''' port.  The port will write a copy of the message to each listener.  In this case, all running editors will interpret this dmestination.

The plumber works transparently on a network, fitting in with the Plan 9 methodologysage as a file name, and open the file.

The plumber is the 9P file server that provides this service.  Clients may use libplumb to format messages.  Since the messages are 9P, they are network transparent.

== See also ==
{{Portal|Free software}}

*[[Pipeline (software)]]

==External links==
*[http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/plumb "Plumbing and Other Utilities"] by [[Rob Pike]]
*[http://swtch.com/plan9port A port of plumber to Unix-like operating systems]
*[http://sqweek.net/code/misc/urxvt-plumb Plumbing extension for urxvt]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Plumber (Program)}}
[[Category:Plan 9 from Bell Labs]]
[[Category:Inferno (operating system)]]
[[Category:Free special purpose file systems]]


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[[it:Plumber]]