Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!ncar!gatech!rutgers!att!westmark!dave
From: dave@westmark.UUCP (Dave Levenson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: INKEY$ [Was: printf, data presentation]
Message-ID: <856@westmark.UUCP>
Date: 15 Jan 89 00:14:13 GMT
References: <19@xenlink.UUCP> <225800106@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> <686@vector.UUCP>
Organization: Westmark, Inc., Warren, NJ, USA
Lines: 33

In article <686@vector.UUCP>, chip@vector.UUCP (Chip Rosenthal) writes:
> In article <225800106@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
> >>From my recollection of BASIC, INKEY$ has two main uses:
...
> >The important point is that some such function should be a
> >STANDARD C (ANSI C) function
...
> No, that isn't the important point.  Such a procedure is generally used
> for busy loops, and this is a bad idea...
> ...If you are waiting for a one of a number of
> assynchronous events, then fork processes to block on the various events
> and signal the parent to handle it.
...
> Since busy waiting is a bad idea, so is formalizing it in a standard.



Waiting for events (such as keystrokes) is not, in itself, a bad
idea!  A standard library function to do it is a good idea.  Looping
within a process _is_ a bad idea in the UNIX operating system, but
the C language is not supposed to be operating system specific. 
There are operating systems where forking a process is not possible
(are you listening, Microsoft?).

A standard event_wait() might be implemented differently where
fork() is defined, but ought to exist, in some form, in the standard
library for all supported environments, no?

-- 
Dave Levenson
Westmark, Inc.		The Man in the Mooney
Warren, NJ USA
{rutgers | att}!westmark!dave