File Content Extraction 25.4
Filter SDK C++ Programming Guide

# Configure Legacy Pipe-Streaming

This section describes advanced options for configuring the streaming method that Filter uses, to optimize performance.

IMPORTANT: These options apply only when you use the legacy out-of-process method. See Use the Legacy Out-of-Process Method. Using the default out-of-process method provides all of the same advantages as pipe-streaming and is faster than both legacy streaming methods.

By default, when you run Filter out-of-process, Filter uses temporary files for much of the communication with `kvoop.exe`. You can instead configure File Content Extraction to use pipe-streaming.

Pipe-streaming has a number of advantages:

- It reduces the disk space used for temporary files.

- It improves responsiveness for partial filtering. When calling filter with `temp_file` communication, File Content Extraction does not call the `write` method on the output object until it has processed the entire file. When you use `pipe` communication, it calls the `write` method on the output object with the first block of text as soon as it is available.

- It reduces the I/O for partial filtering. When you use the `pipe` method, it might not be necessary for File Content Extraction to read the whole input file, especially if you choose to stop filtering before all the text has returned .

- For many formats, it reduces the amount of the input file that is read during extraction, especially if you extract only a subset of the files.

The pipe-streaming method is, however, disabled by default, because for some files it might result in a longer processing time when you do need to process the whole file.

To turn on pipe-streaming mode, you can either:

- Set at least one of the following streaming parameters in the `[FilterSDK_Config]` section of the `formats.ini` to `pipe`:

  `streaming_method` | Set this parameter to `pipe` to change the overall behavior for filtering and extraction to use pipe-streaming mode. By default this parameter is set to `temp`, which uses temporary files during the filter process.
  `filter_streaming_method` | Set this parameter to `pipe` to configure filtering to use pipe-streaming mode. This parameter overrides the value of `streaming_method`.
  `extract_streaming_method` | Set this parameter to `pipe` to configure extraction to use pipe-streaming mode. This parameter overrides the value of `streaming_method`.

- Set the filter streaming options in the API. See extract_pipe_streaming and filter_pipe_streaming.

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Version 25.4 | Last updated October 2025

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Product: File Content Extraction 25.4

Topic Title: Configure Legacy Pipe-Streaming