From: Bill Kelly <billk@...>
Date: 2005-08-10T00:12:12+09:00
Subject: Re: Threading+TCPServer issues on Win32

From: "Simon Kr�ger" <SimonKroeger@gmx.de>
>
> that's the same problem as
>
> require 'timeout'
> timeout(1){ puts gets }
>
> this will never return (or throw the timeout exception) as
> long as you do not hit a key.
> Ruby has no native threads, it gets stuck on blocking system
> calls.
>
> I tried to circumvent the problem with Kernel#select, but for
> some reason
>
> select( [$stdin], nil, nil, 1.5 )
>
> always returns immediately. Is there someone who can explain?

Yes, unfortunately select() on windows only works with
sockets.

I don't know if this will be of any help, but I've used
the following workaround:

if WINDOWS_VERSION
  require 'dl'
  $win32_console_kbhit = Win32API.new("msvcrt", "_kbhit", [], 'I')
  def console_input_ready?
    $win32_console_kbhit.call != 0
  end
else
  def console_input_ready?
    select([$stdin], nil, nil, 0) != nil
  end
end


...it's not foolproof.  If you do a gets() when
console_input_ready? is true on windows, you'll still block
until the user hits <enter>.


Regards,

Bill