plumbing
(Unix) Term used for {shell} code, so called because of the
prevalence of "{pipeline}s" that feed the output of one
program to the input of another. Under {Unix}, user utilities
can often be implemented or at least prototyped by a suitable
collection of pipelines and temporary file {grind}ing
encapsulated in a {shell script}. This is much less effort
than writing {C} every time, and the capability is considered
one of Unix's major winning features. A few other {operating
system}s such as {IBM}'s {VM/CMS} support similar facilities.
The {tee} utility is specifically designed for plumbing.
[{Jargon File}]
(1995-02-23)