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From: mycroft@kropotki.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Charles Hannum)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.programmer
Subject: Re: Non-destructive read of keyboard buffer
Message-ID: <MYCROFT.91Jun8020901@kropotki.gnu.ai.mit.edu>
Date: 8 Jun 91 06:09:01 GMT
References: <22368@duke.cs.duke.edu>
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In-reply-to: jit@slic.cellbio.duke.edu's message of 7 Jun 91 17:03:28 GMT

In article <22368@duke.cs.duke.edu> jit@slic.cellbio.duke.edu writes:

   Hi, I am trying to find out if a keyboard buffer is empty but not reading
   it because I don't want to get stuck if there isn't any buffered.
   (on ATT SVR3)

   Is there a 'standard' way on unix to do this ?

You can use select(2) under BSD, or set the terminal to non-blocking I/O
(using the FIONBIO ioctl), try to read, and see if you get EWOULDBLOCK.

Details available upon request.  B-)