Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!motown!vilya!lcuxlm!whuts!att!rutgers!gatech!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!killer!vector!rpp386!jfh From: jfh@rpp386.UUCP (The Beach Bum) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: How can I read keyboard without stopping Keywords: curses keyboard Message-ID: <5558@rpp386.UUCP> Date: 18 Aug 88 05:05:53 GMT References: <813@ms3.UUCP> <1246@mcgill-vision.UUCP> <1988Aug15.130550.8571@ateng.uucp> <1267@ficc.UUCP> Reply-To: jfh@rpp386.UUCP (The Beach Bum) Organization: HASA, "S" Division Lines: 19 In article <1267@ficc.UUCP> peter@ficc.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: >I believe that once upon a time on some system a stat() on a pipe would >return the number of characters in a pipe. Wouldn't it make sense to >have stat() on a terminal device return the number of characters available? >(and a stat() on /dev/mem return memory size, and...) stat() is implemented by taking chunks of the inode table enty and stuffing that into a "struct stat" thingy. i believe the number of characters queued in a pipe was a side effect (read `feature') of the implementation of pipes, and probably not intentional. one must remember that under system v, pipes are really just unnamed files which never grow past a certain size, and who blocks get juggled as they are written. -- John F. Haugh II +--------- Cute Chocolate Quote --------- HASA, "S" Division | "USENET should not be confused with UUCP: killer!rpp386!jfh | something that matters, like CHOCOLATE" DOMAIN: jfh@rpp386.uucp | -- apologizes to Dennis O'Connor