How to open a Windows named pipe from Java?

Question

On our Linux system we use named pipes for interprocess communication (a producer and a consumer).

In order to test the consumer (Java) code, I would like to implement (in Java) a dummy producer which writes to a named pipe which is connected to the consumer.

Now the test should also work in the Windows development environment. Thus I would like to know how to create a named pipe in Windows from Java. In Linux I can use mkfifo (called using Runtime.exec() ), but how should I do this on Windows?

Answer 1

Use Named Pipes to Communicate Between Java and .Net Processes

Relevant part in the link

try {   // Connect to the pipe   RandomAccessFile pipe = new RandomAccessFile("\\\\.\\pipe\\testpipe", "rw");   String echoText = "Hello word\n";   // write to pipe   pipe.write ( echoText.getBytes() );   // read response   String echoResponse = pipe.readLine();   System.out.println("Response: " + echoResponse );   pipe.close(); } catch (Exception e) {   // TODO Auto-generated catch block   e.printStackTrace(); } 

Answer 2

In windows, named pipes exist but they cannot be created as files in a writeable filesystem and there is no command line tool. They live in a special filesystem and can be created only by using the Win32 API.

Looks like you'll have to resort to native code, or switch from pipes to sockets for IPC - probably the best longterm solution, since it's much more portable.