On Saturday, 28 December 2013 at 17:42:26 UTC, Jakob Ovrum wrote:
On Saturday, 28 December 2013 at 17:23:30 UTC, Jeroen Bollen
wrote:
Usually if you're working with a console though the input
stream won't exhaust and thus the blocking 'readln' would be a
better option, no?
The blocking behaviour of `stdin` by default is fine. The issue
is that `readln` returns an empty string when `stdin` is
empty/closed, which is different from an empty line (which is
just the line terminator). Approaches that erase the difference
with functions like `chomp` can't tell them apart.
Assuming that `stdin` will never close seems like a bad idea
when it's so easy to handle, and the consequences of it closing
can be harsh (particularly an infinite loop). Even assuming
that `stdin` will never be redirected and always used from a
console, an experienced user might use ^Z to close standard
input to signal a clean end, only to be faced with either an
obscure error, segfault or infinite loop.
Wouldn't byline return an empty string if the inputstream is
exhausted but not closed?
