Does a blocking read byte method exist?

[wolfen351]

Hi there

Please pardon my ignorance, but i'm looking for the simplest possible method (imho) and not finding it - a way to read a byte from the stream when it becomes available. I'm happy to block until the byte arrives.

Please can you point me to such a method?

Thanks!

[jcurl]

There is plenty that I've copied from the MSDN implementation:

• the standard Stream.Read(byte[] buffer, int offset, int count) method.
• the simplest public override int ReadByte() method.
• for chars public int Read(char[] buffer, int offset, int count)
• and here public int ReadChar()

To block forever, ensure that ReadTimeout is set to -1.

Cheers, Jason.

[wolfen351]

Ok, thank you. I was under the impression that these didn't block, that they returned immediately with -1 if data was not available (i'm thinking specificially about ReadByte() here). I found the wiki in the meantime, so all is good :)

[jcurl]

Looking at the code:

public override int ReadByte()
        {
            if (IsDisposed) throw new ObjectDisposedException("SerialPortStream");
            if (m_Buffer == null) return -1;
            if (ReadCheckDeviceError()) return -1;

            if (m_NativeSerial.IsRunning) {
                if (!m_Buffer.Stream.WaitForRead(m_ReadTimeout)) {
                    ReadCheckDeviceError();
                    return -1;
                }
            }
            int value = m_Buffer.Stream.ReadByte();
            if (value != -1) m_ReadTo.Reset(false);
            return value;
        }

the text m_Buffer.Stream.WaitForRead(m_ReadTimeout) should mean it will block until data is available.