https://sankethbk.github.io/blog/tags/splice/Recent content in Splice on Sanketh's BlogHugo -- 0.164.0en-usWed, 08 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sankethbk.github.io/blog/posts/operating-systems/linux/2026-07-08-pipes/Wed, 08 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://sankethbk.github.io/blog/posts/operating-systems/linux/2026-07-08-pipes/<h1 id="the-pipes">The Pipes</h1> <h2 id="file-descriptors">File Descriptors</h2> <p>To understand file descriptors (FDs), you have to look at one of the core design philosophies of Unix and Linux: &ldquo;Everything is a file.&rdquo; Whether a process is interacting with a regular text file, a directory, a hardware device (like a hard drive), a network socket, or an in-memory pipe, the kernel represents all of them as &ldquo;files.&rdquo;</p> <p>A file descriptor is simply the lightweight handle that user-space processes use to talk to these files. Here is the low-level architectural breakdown of how they work.</p>