From: "Jon A. Lambert" <jlsysinc@...>
Date: 2005-09-26T18:14:17+09:00
Subject: IO#getc behavior

I'm writing a console application with an input loop like the following:

   while running
        keyhit = select( [$stdin], nil, nil, 0.1 )
        if keyhit
          c = $stdin.getc
          session.message(c.chr)
        end
   end

In the cygwin version of Ruby all is fine.   The user hits a key select() 
indicates it and the character is gotten with $stdin.getc.

However I ran this under the msvc version of windows and what happens is 
select() returns a ready state for $stdin whether a key is hit or not. 
Then getc() blocks? because there's nothing yet to be gotten.  Worse no I/O 
seems to be going on until the user hits the return key and then whammo I 
see either the end result of the loops or it appears more likely getc blocks 
internally under cover until it sees a CR in the stream.

Is there a workaround?

Thanks

--
J Lambert