The functions in the named pipe category control interprocess communication (IPC) for named pipes. The functions can be processed only on a remote server that has interprocess communication shares.

DOS supports only client processes; a pipe already must have been created and connected to on a remote server. Child processes inherit the open file handles of the parent processes. DOS supports asynchronous reading and writing of named pipes, as long as the pipe already is created and connected.

DosReadAsyncNmPipe and DosWriteAsyncNmPipe are DOS named pipe APIs that are not used by the OS/2 program. DosReadAsync is the OS/2 equivalent of DosReadAsyncNmPipe, and DosWriteAsync is the OS/2 equivalent of DosWriteAsyncNmPipe. These companion APIs perform the same functions.

Note: The FAPI replacement library routine for DosOpen provides support for DASD opens (open mode flag 0x8000). Since DOS does not support this operation, pipe operations on this type of file handle return ERROR_INVALID_HANDLE, rather than ERROR_BAD_PIPE.