Search Results

If this were C, you'd set the file descriptors non-blocking and use the select() system call to tell when one file descriptor or the other has data ready to be read at any particular time.

The...

I don't think I really understand what you're trying to do, then. Could you give a little pseudocode?

Yes, it will block.

Since it's bash, you could have it time out eventually if the user doesn't type anything ( read -t 1 userinput < /dev/tty )

Read user input from /dev/tty, to avoid accidentally reading input from the pipe or file instead. /dev/tty will always be the current terminal, if any.

... | while read LINE
do
printf...