Yes. Read http://web.mit.edu/~simsong/www/ugh.pdf http://web.mit.edu/~simsong/www/ugh.pdf Then read: http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ http://www.cat

Yes. Read http://web.mit.edu/~simsong/www/ugh.pdf http://web.mit.edu/~simsong/www/ugh.pdf Then read: http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ You are responsible, as programmer or script writer, to ensure that the data you give to some tool is compatible! But notice also that the pipe is not the only IPC mechanism available on unix; there are a lot of other ways unix processes can communicate, from shared memory to external files, thru pipes, sockets, semaphores, signals and others. Each of these IPC mechanisms can be used to compose tools, as long as they are designed to use those mechanisms. In all cases, you need to document the specifications of the interfaces and data format.