Re: [doc] read -t and sockets, devices...

[Stephane Chazelas]

On Fri, Jun 13, 2008 at 06:52:48PM -0400, Chet Ramey wrote:
[...]
>>      Also, it may be good to specify that, if the timeout is
>>      reached, bash will consume the input but will not put
>>      that consumed input into the variable:
>
> Actually, the bash-4.0 implementation will put the input read into
> the specified variable(s), but will still return failure if the timeout
> is hit.
>
> I think the best way to differentiate is to clear the variable before
> the call, then check the variable afterward.  You can treat the read
> as having failed, but still use whatever data was read, if any.
[...]

Thanks, however in the:

        sleep 1 | bash -c 'read -t2'
        and
        sleep 2 | bash -c 'read -t1'

case, that still won't help. The first case is eof, second is
timeout. $REPLY will be empty in both cases, and 1 returned.

What about a different $? (like 2 for timeout)?

-- 
Stéphane