Pipes

A shell pipeline or simply a pipeline refers to a construct where data is pushed from one command to another in an assembly line fashion. It is expressed as a series of commands separated by a pipe symbol |. These pipes connect the stdout of each command to the stdin of the subsequent command. Internally, a pipe is a special memory FIFO (first in, first out) buffer provided by the OS.

The basic syntax of a pipeline is as follows:

command1 | command2

Any number of commands can be linked:

command1 | command2 | command3 | command4

Pipelines are analogous to assembly lines in a factory. Like an assembly line lets multiple workers simultaneously do one designated job repeatedly, ending up with a finished product, a pipeline lets a series of commands work on a stream of data, each doing one task, eventually leading to the desired output.

Pipelines ensure maximum throughput and optimal usage of computing power. The time taken for a pipeline task in most cases will...