From: daz <dooby@...10.karoo.co.uk>
Date: 2004-04-29T09:14:02+09:00
Subject: Re: DRb & thread blocking.


>
> If anyone knows the work-around to this, please add.
>

Hope this is of general use for STDIN#gets in a thread.
It checks for input in the keyboard buffer and if there
is any, does a normal (blocking) STDIN#gets.


# STDIN#wt_gets for Windows
# Doesn't block threads until there's input.

# Won't run from GUIs (e.g. RDE, SciTE ...)
#  (see kbhit API docs.)

require 'Win32API'
W_kbhit = Win32API.new('msvcrt', '_kbhit', '',  'I')

def STDIN.key_wait
  while W_kbhit.call == 0; sleep 0.1; end
end

def STDIN.wt_gets
  key_wait
  gets
end

#----- Usage ...

STDOUT.sync = true

Thread.new do
  loop do
    puts Time.now
    sleep 1
  end
end

Thread.new do
  loop do
    inp = STDIN.wt_gets.chomp!
    inp.upcase == 'EXIT' and Thread.exit
    puts inp
  end
end.join

puts "\n\nPress a key to really exit ...\n\n"
STDIN.key_wait  # defined above

#----------

I tried a VRuby GUI solution but it became a bit too
feature-packed.  Couldn't hold myself back :-)


daz