Everything is a file - a Plan9 user writes

[lawless-m]

In Plan9, applications to not need to understand TCP/IP, SSL or many other specific protocols or layers. Such things are dealt with once as a device which then provides a file hierarchy instead of needing a library.

By example below is some rc shell code to join an irc server and Ping Pong.

I was lamenting on The Power of Prolog's video on web scraping how having to add support for protocols and layers was duplicated effort when it only needs to be done once if you implement it is a file system.

Abstracting services to reading and writing to files is one of the great strengths of the Unix way and Plan9 really pushes that. After many years of plan9 use, it is depressing to go back to Unix and realise what a mess it all is. So many times one finds oneself sighing "this would be so much easier in plan9".

Unify All The Streams of Bytes

<[4] /net/tcp/clone {
	netdir=`{basename -d /net/tcp/clone} ^ / ^  `{cat /fd/4}
	echo connect 192.168.1.9!6667 >$netdir/ctl || exit 'cannot connect'
	{
		if (~ `{cat $netdir/status} Established*) {
			echo JOIN $channel > $netdir/data
			echo PRIVMSG $channel :$botnick is back > $netdir/data
			while ( line=(`{read}) ) {
				if(~ $line(1) PING) { 
					echo PONG $line(2) > $netdir/data
				}
			}
		}
	} < $netdir/data
}

an expanded version which will eval text received is at https://github.com/lawless-m/rc-shell/blob/master/chugly.rc (which sounds rather dangerous but isn't so much)

[triska]

Related issue: #614

If a stream can be provided as a source, then the existing open/3 predicate can be used to open it for reading, with a different encoding etc.