From: jjenning@... (jared l. jennings)
Date: 2001-08-14T00:06:47+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:19640] Re: reading characters without waiting for carriage return

On Sun, Aug 12, 2001 at 10:04:14PM +0900, ts wrote:
> >>>>> "R" == RodZilla  <rodzilla2@home.SPAM.com> writes:
> R> I need to read keystrokes from the console or data from a serial port
> R> without having to wait for a carriage return...
> 
>  Perhaps something like [ruby-talk:9108]
>  http://www.ruby-talk.com/9108

Perhaps this would be a good time to release my ruby-tty extension... it's
complete and documented but untested. But it ought to work.

Unfortunately like the [ruby-talk:9108] solution, it's not guaranteed
to be very portable. I've only built it on Linux; it should work with
minor modifications on other Unices, but on Windows you're probably dead
in the water as far as ruby-tty is concerned.

http://ruby-audiofile.sourceforge.net/download/ruby-tty-0.2.tar.gz

with my extension the way to do the same thing as in [ruby-talk:9108]
would be:

#----
require 'tty'

tty = File.open("/dev/tty").extend tty
stty_save = tty.save
tty.make_raw
begin
    print "quit by hitting q\r\n"
    while c = STDIN.getc and c != ?q
        p [c, c.chr]
        print "\r"
    end
ensure
    tty.load stty_save
end
tty.close
#----

not much shorter, but no backquotes or anything.

-- 

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single 
man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
                -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery