LinuxQuestions.org - messing with a FIFO

hi, i need to use interprocess communication, and have done a little reading.
it seems i need a FIFO file.
as i understand it, if a process tries to read from an empty FIFO, the process is halted until another process writes something to it.

likewise, if a process tries to write to a full FIFO, it is halted until another process reads from it.

so heres what i did:

i open a terminal and type:

Code:

mkfifo fifo

cat fifo

like i predicted, cat seems paused.

i then open another terminal and run:

Code:

echo text > fifo

this command runs, but cat still remains halted in the other terminal.
i thought that cat would spit out the new 'text'.

have i got the wrong idea about something?