From: pit@...
Date: 2001-06-16T17:45:30+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:16531] Re: alarm()

On 16 Jun 2001, at 12:36, Dave Thomas wrote:

> Joseph McDonald <joe@vpop.net> writes:
> 
> > Is there a way to schedule a SIGALRM in ruby?
> > I ask because I want to abort a system() call if
> > it does not complete in "x" seconds.  It appears that
> > the "timeout" class does not work when executing a
> > system call.
> 
> Tacky, but you could start a thread that sends you a SIGALRM:
> 
>    Thread.new do
>       sleep 2
>       Process.kill "ALRM", $$
>    end
> 
>    begin
>      line = gets
>      puts "You said #{line}"
>    rescue SignalException
>      puts "too slow!"
>    end
> 
> 
> Regards
> 
> 
> Dave

FYI, I tried Dave's example on Win NT and ruby 1.6.2 (2000-12-18) 
[i386-cygwin]. It works almost as expected, but when I press a key 
in the first two seconds and then wait, the gets is not interrupted at 
all.