how do FIFOs work?

[anarcat]

I read in the README and the design document that there are FIFOs setup in the .smd directory. Yet it's unclear how they can be operated by the user. I assume that the gnome applet might use those, but I'm wondering if I could use those sockets to make smd-loop wake up early for example .... In OfflineIMAP, i would send it SIGUSR to force a refresh now, for example.

[gares]

No, fifos are for internal use only.

What I do to force a pull now is to invoke smd-pull by hand. There are lock files, so it won't mess things up.

[anarcat]

No, fifos are for internal use only.

It would still be useful to have documentation on how they work, say I wanted to implement some contrib plugin for my own status bar or something... Maybe in the design docs?

What I do to force a pull now is to invoke smd-pull by hand. There are lock files, so it won't mess things up.

Ah yes, good point, thanks!