From: ara.t.howard@...
Date: 2007-01-18T00:26:17+09:00
Subject: Re: Reading from $stdin

On Wed, 17 Jan 2007, Adrian Roskrow wrote:

> Hi
>
> I need to read from a usb connected barcode reader and I thought ruby
> would be a good way to do it. I have written a quick program to read
> from the $stdin object but it just sits there and waits.

but this is __exactly__ what you told it to do?

   harp:~ > PAGER=cat ri 'IO#read'
   ---------------------------------------------------------------- IO#read
        ios.read([length [, buffer]])    => string, buffer, or nil
   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Reads at most _length_ bytes from the I/O stream, or to the end of
        file if _length_ is omitted or is +nil+. _length_ must be a
        non-negative integer or nil. If the optional _buffer_ argument is
        present, it must reference a String, which will receive the data.

        At end of file, it returns +nil+ or +""+ depend on _length_.
        +_ios_.read()+ and +_ios_.read(nil)+ returns +""+.
        +_ios_.read(_positive-integer_)+ returns nil.

           f = File.new("testfile")
           f.read(16)   #=> "This is line one"

so, in this case, you are reading until the end of stdin.  you can enter eof on
the command line (in *nix) with ctrl-d.

> Im very new to ruby so I have probably made a fundamental mistake. Can
> anyone see what I have done, or can anyone point me in the right direction
> or provide an example?

afaikt your code works perfectly:

   harp:~ > cat a.rb
   #!/usr/bin/env ruby
   text = $stdin.read
   lines = text.split("\n")
   i = 1
   for line in lines do
    puts "#{i}. " + line
    i += 1
   end


   harp:~ > printf "42\n43\n" | ruby a.rb
   1. 42
   2. 43


in any case it looks like you're on the right track - welcome to ruby!

-a
-- 
in the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher.
- the dalai lama