i'm trying to use a named pipe with prince by giving the pipe name as the file argument, but prince always exits with an error:

$ prince -o out.pdf myfifo
prince: myfifo:1: error: Document is empty
prince: myfifo:1: error: Start tag expected, '<' not found
prince: myfifo: error: could not load input file
prince: error: no input documents to process

simpy cat'ing the html file into the pipe can cause the error:

$ cat myhtml > myfifo

whereas piping the html into prince works fine:

$ cat myhtml | prince - -o out.pdf

It doesn't look like Prince can successfully read the input document from a named pipe. Honestly, I don't think anyone has ever tried to do this before.

Perhaps you could write the document to a temporary file, instead? Or read the named pipe with a different tool, eg. "cat myfifo | prince - -o out.pdf"?

yes that's what i'm doing in the meantime, writing it to a temporary file. the cat approach also works.

i'm not stuck, just thought i'd report it .