non-blocking read

[edhall%rand-unix at sri-unix.UUCP]

From:  Ed_Hall <edhall at rand-unix>

I just looked it up in my 4.2 source and you're absolutely right.
The only thing created separately for a dup()'d file descriptor is
the close-on-exec flag.

I can think of occasions where sharing a single offset pointer across
dup's is desirable behavior, especially in implementing the shell.
But not being able to set flags on a per-descriptor basis is a loss.
Perhaps the FNDELAY flag should behave the same as the close-on-exec
flag.  Any comments on this?

Anyone for a reopen() system call?

		-Ed Hall
		edhall at rand-unix        (ARPA)
		decvax!randvax!edhall   (UUCP)