userix,

with sticky bit I meant it on the directory - hope you also meant the same.

When the data can't fit in the pipe kernel data structure automatically it retorts to storage in the form of file.

Is it something, user should be able to create only process space and no files at all ?

Even with what I had suggested its going to be a silent operation, temp file creation and deletion.

I grabbed the definition of sticky bit from wikipedia: "when set, items inside the directory can be renamed or deleted only by the item's owner, the directory's owner, or the superuser"

So would this mean that when my professors runs the script, it will create the temp file with no issues, but when it comes to "rm" the temp file, he won't be able to, since sticky bit forbids deleting of any files in the set directory, thus throwing an error when it hits the "rm tempfile" part of my script? I guess in the end, I can just give him write permissions as well to the folder containing this script, that way the temp file will create and delete without errors. Thanks again.