[Unix] Term used for {shell} code, so called because of the
prevalence of pipelines 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
temp-file grinding 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 OSs such as IBM's
VM/CMS support similar facilities. Esp.: used in the construction
hairy plumbing (see {hairy}). "You can kluge together a basic
spell-checker out of sort(1), comm(1), and tr(1) with a little
plumbing." See also {tee}.
[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {filter}{tee}{tool}]