From: Bjorn Borud <borud-news@...>
Date: 2006-11-01T11:45:05+09:00
Subject: Re: Nonblocking IO read

[Tom Pollard <tomp@earthlink.net>]
| 
| The select() function (Kernel#select, in Ruby) is the standard way to  
| do IO multiplexing under Unix.  You give it a list of file handles on  
| which you're waiting to be able to read or write, and it returns when  
| one or more of them is ready.   Windows provides a select() function,  
| too, but it only supports sockets (not pipes or ordinary file IO.)

if memory serves, a select(2) on a file descriptors representing a
(disk) file only had defined semantics when used to wait on mandatory
locking and is not used for ensuring that a read(2) or write(2) will
not block.  (I might be in error since it has been a while since I
looked into it).

-Bj�rn