How to create special files that talk to BASH shell

Question

I'm trying to use someone else's [c] code that controls a linux shell over a wireless usb device. It fopen-s files "IReadFromBash" and "IWriteToBash" in the current dir to communicate. It comes with no notes but obviously expects a special file to already exist to facilitate this, and segfaults without them. Is there some obvious way to create named in- and out-files that connect to a shell?

Answer 1

Really just a guess on my part but I suspect they'll be named pipes, created with mknod. That seems to me the best way to achieve the desired goal.

You can see this in operation here. From a terminal session:

pax> mknod infile p
pax> mknod outfile p
pax> bash <infile >outfile

Then, from another terminal:

pax> echo ls >infile
pax> cat outfile | sed 's/^/    /'
    backup0.sh
    backup1.sh
    Desktop
    Downloads
    infile
    Music
    outfile
    Pax
    Pictures
    Public
    super_sekrit_porn
    Templates
    Videos
    workspace
pax> _