From: Lennon Day-Reynolds <rcoder@...>
Date: 2004-09-17T06:12:08+09:00
Subject: Re: expect.rb in 1.8.2

Phil,

The 'expect.rb' library uses 'select()', which only works for sockets
on Windows, not regular file handles, IIRC. Looking at the source,
though, it seems to only work on a single file handle at a time,
anyway, so I'm not sure what it buys you something like the
uber-simple version below.

-- 'miniexpect.rb'
require 'timeout'

class IO
  def expect(pat, wait=9999999)
    result = nil
    buff = ''
    begin
      timeout(wait) do
        c = getc.chr
        buff << c
			
        if pat.match(buff)
          result = [buff, *mat.to_a[1..-1]]
        end
      end
    rescue Timeout::Error; end
    
    if block_given?
      yield result
    else
      return result
    end
  end
end
--

-- 
Lennon
rcoder.net