From: John Feezell <JohnFeezell@3wplace.com>
Date: 2004-07-22T22:10:59+09:00
Subject: Re: sysread and buffered I/O

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 16:01:06 +0900, Tanaka Akira <akr@m17n.org> wrote:

> In article <opsbhnakfau5o8pp@233.dallas-20rh16rt.tx.dial-access.att.net>,
>   "John Feezell" <JohnFeezell@3wplace.com> writes:
>
>> Here are some other possible names that seems to fit with readchar,
>> readline,
>> and readlines and yet catch the idea of "readpartial."
>>
>> readportion
>> readparcel
>> readbundle
>> readatmost
>>
>> Personally, "readatmost" would fit closes in my mind to the above
>> description.
>
> "at most" doesn't represent the difference between IO#readpartial and
> IO#read.  IO#read also reads at most <i>integer</i> bytes from the I/O
> stream.
>
> The difference is the blocking behaviour.
>
> % (sleep 1; echo abc; sleep 1; echo def) | ./ruby -e 't1 = Time.now; p  
> STDIN.readpartial(4096); t2 = Time.now; p t2-t1'
> "abc\n"
> 1.001541
> % (sleep 1; echo abc; sleep 1; echo def) | ./ruby -e 't1 = Time.now; p  
> STDIN.read(4096); t2 = Time.now; p t2-t1'
> "abc\ndef\n"
> 2.011527
>
> Both IO#readpartial and IO#read blocks until some data are available.
> But after some data are avalable, IO#readpartial just return the data
> and doesn't block anymore.  IO#read blocks until EOF or specified
> length, though.

Thanks.  That makes the difference clearer.
Well then, how about,

readforedata    #suggest that only the "first" or "some" data is read
readandhalt     #suggest reading is only partial