get character without waiting

[Blair P. Houghton]

In article <1991Jun12.085022.73@%boot.decnet at edwards-tems.af.mil> elston%boot.decnet at edwards-tems.af.mil (Mark Elston, NSI Inc., Edwards AFB CA) writes:
>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)".
>
>That's great for all of you with "select(2)" in your libraries.

I wasn't worried about how; I really do want to know
why it's called "select".

And the answer is, "RTFFAQ."

				--Blair
				  "What is poll(2) or rdchk(2), Alex?"