From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Date: Sat,  5 Dec 2009 08:16:53 -1000
From: Tim Newsham <newsham@lava.net>
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net>
In-Reply-To: <20091205031747.GA8759@nipl.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.4.64.0912050815270.13404@malasada.lava.net>
References: <20091205031747.GA8759@nipl.net>
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Subject: Re: [9fans] ideas for helpful system io functions
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> I can see two possible solutions for this, both of which would be useful in my
> opinion:
>
>  - an "unread" function, like ungetc, which allows a program to put back some
>    data that was already read to the OS stdin buffer (not the stdio buffer).
>    This might be problematic if there is a limit to the size of the buffers.

Wouldn't it be a lot easier to change the convention of the
program you're forking and execing to take 1) a buffer of data
(passed via cmd line, or fd, or whatever) and 2) the fd with
the unconsumed part of the data?  The only data that would have
to be copied would be the preconsumed data that you would have
wanted to "unget".

> Sam

Tim Newsham | www.thenewsh.com/~newsham | thenewsh.blogspot.com