get character without waiting

[Blair P. Houghton]

In article <1991Jun12.001056.24021 at watdragon.waterloo.edu> nkkwan at crocus.uwaterloo.ca writes:
>
>How can I check whether there is character waiting in standard input or not? 
>What I want to do is something like..
>   
>If there is a character, then I read it. But if not, I can do something else.

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)".

				--Blair
				  "This particular question has
				   passed beyond the realm of the
				   frequently-asked and into the
				   paradigm of the self-asking."