Why does java's RandomAccessFile not return on linux?

Question

I'm new to java and was trying to read and write to named pipes (created in another native C++ process) using RandomAccessFile. Here's my code :-

String input_pipe = "/home/user/some_pipe";
try {
  System.out.println("here1");
  RandomAccessFile inp_pipe = new RandomAccessFile(input_pipe, "r");
  System.out.println("here2");
} catch (Exception exp) {
  System.out.println("Some error opening pipe :- " + exp.getMessage());
}

When I run this code, all I get on the output is :-

here1

And the process just doesn't return. Any tips on what I'm doing wrong or how I can debug this?

Answer 1

Since none of the commenters chose to write an answer, I'll write one myself.

The problem is that opening a named pipe on linux will block until the other end of the pipe has also been opened. You can either open it in non-blocking mode or open both ends of the pipe at once.