Open System Services Shell and Utilities Reference Manual (G06.27+, H06.04+)

User Commands (m - o) mk
fifo(1)
NAME
mkfifo - Makes FIFO special files
SYNOPSIS
mkfifo [-m mode] file ...
The mkfifo utility creates FIFO special files in the order specified.
FLAGS
-m mode Sets the file permission bits of the new file to the specified mode value, after creating
the FIFO special file. The mode argument is a symbolic mode string (see chmod), in
which the operator characters + (plus sign) and - (minus) are interpreted relative to the
default file mode for that file type. The + character adds permissions to the default
mode, and - deletes permissions from the default mode.
The default mode is a=rw (permissions of rw-rw-rw).
DESCRIPTION
For each file argument, mkfifo performs actions equivalent to the mkfifo() call with the following
arguments:
1. The file argument is used as the pathname argument.
2. The value of the bitwise inclusive OR of S_IRUSR, S_IWUSR, S_IRGRP, S_IWGRP,
S_IROTH, and S_IWOTH is used as the mode argument.
EXAMPLES
1. To create a FIFO special file with permissions prw-r--r--,enter:
mkfifo
-m 644 /tmp/myfifo
The command creates the /tmp/myfifo file with read/write permissions for the owner and
read permission for the group and for others.
2. To create a FIFO special file using the - (minus) operand to set permissions of prw-r-----,
enter:
mkfifo
-m g-w,o-rw /tmp/fifo2
The command creates the /tmp/fifo2 file, removing write permission for the group and all
permissions for others.
EXIT VALUES
The mkfifo utility exits with one of the following values:
0 Indicates that all the specified FIFO special files were created successfully.
>0 Indicates that an error occurred.
RELATED INFORMATION
Commands: mknod(8).
Functions: chmod(2), mkdir(2), mkfifo(3), mknod(2), umask(2).
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