Subject: Re: FIONWRITE proposal
To: der Mouse <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
From: Daniel Carosone <dan@geek.com.au>
List: tech-kern
Date: 10/15/2004 19:14:30
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On Thu, Oct 14, 2004 at 01:26:20PM -0400, der Mouse wrote:
> That actually isn't how FIONREAD is defined, as its behaviour on plain
> files makes clear, but it amounts to the same thing for practically
> everything else.  It's the way I thought of it until this discussion,
> and it's probably the way a lot of other people thought of it too.

Well, I'm not sure how people think of splitting the definitions, but
the clear expectation and usage pattern embodied in common code is
"how many bytes can I read without blocking", as became apparent when
trying to use mencoder to capture tv when our audio(4) didn't support
FIONREAD.

Whether the formal definition is exactly this, or something slightly
different that happens to have this property, it's what programmers
use it for.

--
Dan.

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