get character without waiting

[der Mouse]

In article <4669 at inews.intel.com>, bhoughto at pima.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton) writes:

> Y'know, I've often wondered what it was that possessed the forgers of
> unix to name that damn function "select(2)" instead of
> "checkiobuffersforremainingcharacters(2)".

For one thing, the latter requires much more typing, and is harder to
spell correctly. :-)

More seriously, select() does more than just check for available
characters; it can also be used (in conjunction with non-blocking I/O)
for programs that can't afford to block in a write(), and also has
timeout facilities that are useful in their own right....

					der Mouse

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