Pip version 0.2.2

INTRODUCTION

Some programs (often those from a non-Unix background) don't read
input from stdin, nor write to stdout.  Instead, they make you specify
an 'input file' and an 'output file' on the command line.  At least most
Unix programs that do this let you use the special filename '-' to
mean stdin or stdout, but there are some programs that don't recognize 
this convention.

Sometimes this is for technical reasons, because the input needs to be
seekable.  Sometimes it is because the author didn't think it would be
useful and is probably a Pascal sympathizer :-).  But in any case, it
is annoying not to be able to use such programs in pipelines.

Pip fixes this problem.  It wraps such programs and lets you give
filenames of '-' as you would with any other.  However pip doesn't
know whether '-' should mean stdin or stdout, so you must tell it with 
the -i or -o flags.

For example, to make Netscape read a web page from stdin:

pip -i netscape -

To convert the program 'stupid', which takes an input filename and an
output filename, to be a filter:

pip -io stupid - -

And to pipe a C program through the compiler (if for any reason you
needed to do such a thing):

pip -io gcc -.c -o -

In this case, the temporary input filename given to gcc will end in
'.c'.

Read the documentation at the start of 'pip' itself for more detailed
instructions and examples.

TeX and LaTeX

pip is fairly general and works for 90% of the annoying DOSish
programs out there, but it won't handle more complex programs like TeX
that generate multiple output files.  The separate program pip_latex
wraps latex, turning it into a filter that reads LaTeX source from
stdin and writes a DVI file to stdout.  For example,

pip_latex <filename.tex | pip -i xdvi -

to quickly format and view a LaTeX source file.  See the documentation
at the start of 'pip_latex' for how it handles TeX's error messages
and logs.


INSTALLING

Just copy 'pip' to somewhere in your PATH and make it executable, if
you have /usr/bin/perl.


SECURITY WARNING: these programs may use /tmp in an insecure way,
making them vulnerable to symlink attacks.  If your system has
multiple users and you are paranoid, then don't run these programs.
I'll try to fix this some time.


COPYING

All the files are in the public domain.  This means there are no
copyright restrictions, you may do what you wish with them.  Of
course, giving credit would be appeciated (but not required).

They are offered as-is with no warranty whatsoever.


AUTHOR

Please contact me with any suggestions or bug reports.

Ed Avis <epa98@doc.ic.ac.uk>

These programs have a web page at
<http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~epa98/work/apps/unarc>.
