Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 16:35:58 +0200 From: j@uriah.heep.sax.de (J Wunsch) To: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Cc: mike@smith.net.au (Mike Smith) Subject: Re: Timeout for sh(1) 'read' ?? Message-ID: <19970927163558.WP09379@uriah.heep.sax.de> In-Reply-To: <199709260748.RAA00456@word.smith.net.au>; from Mike Smith on Sep 26, 1997 17:18:45 %2B0930 References: <199709260748.RAA00456@word.smith.net.au>
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As Mike Smith wrote:
> Hiho folks, a question for the sh(1) studs amongst you :
>
> - I want to prompt for input using 'read', and have the read return in
> some fashion after a timeout.
A quick search for the word `timeout' in the ksh93 man page unveils:
TMOUT If set to a value greater than zero, TMOUT
will be the default timeout value for the
read built-in command. The select compound
command terminates after TMOUT seconds when
input is from a terminal. Otherwise, the
shell will terminate if a line is not
entered within the prescribed number of sec-
onds while reading from a terminal. (Note
that the shell can be compiled with a maxi-
mum bound for this value which cannot be
exceeded.)
and:
read [ -Aprs ] [ -d delim] [ -t timeout] [ -u
unit] [ vname?prompt ] [ vname ... ]
The shell input mechanism. One line is read and is
broken up into fields using the characters in IFS
as separators. [...]
Posix doesn't seem to have any opinion for this, so it looks like just
creeping featurism on ksh's side. (Posix only mentions option -r.)
--
cheers, J"org
joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de -- http://www.sax.de/~joerg/ -- NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)
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