Script stops while waiting for user input from STDIN.gets

Question

I'm trying to do something like this, where I have two loops going in seperate threads. The problem I am having is that in the main thread, when I use gets and the script is waiting for user input, the other thread is stopped to wait as well.

class Server
    def initialize()
        @server = TCPServer.new(8080)
        run
    end
    def run()
        @thread = Thread.new(@server) { |server|
            while true
                newsock = server.accept
                puts "some stuff after accept!"
                next if !newsock
                # some other stuff
            end
        }
    end
end
def processCommand()
    # some user commands here
end
test = Server.new
while true do
  processCommand(STDIN.gets)
end

The above is just a sample of what I want to do.

Is there a way to make the main thread block while waiting for user input?

Answer 1

You might want to take a look at using the select method of the IO class. Take a look at

good select example for handling select with asynchronous input. Depending upon what version of ruby you're using you might have issues with STDIN though, I'm pretty sure it always triggers the select in 1.8.6.