reading bytes and blocking

[John Merlino]

I come across this method:

read(n=nil, buffer=nil) – read n bytes (or fewer, if EOF is reached),
blocking if necessary, until the bytes are ready.

What does it mean "blocking if necessary"? Blocking what?

[Colin Law]

It means that if it is reading from a keyboard for example it will
wait (block) for data to be input if there is nothing available. A
non-blocking read will just pick up whatever data is available and
immediately return.

Colin

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