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Arbitrary Input R←X ⎕ARBIN Y

This transmits a stream of 8-bit codes in Y to an output device specified by X prior to reading from an input device specified by X.

Y may be a scalar or a simple vector of integer numbers in the range 0-255.

X may take several forms:

terminate (input output) ⎕ARBIN codes
terminate input ⎕ARBIN codes

terminate

This is a numeric scalar or vector that specifies how the read operation should be terminated.

  • If it is a numeric scalar, it defines the number of bytes to be read.
  • If it is a numeric vector, it defines a set of terminating bytes.
  • If it is the null vector, the read terminates on Newline (10).

input

This is a simple numeric scalar that specifies the input device.

  • If it is positive or zero, it represents a file descriptor that must have been associated by the command that started Dyalog APL.
  • If it is negative, it represents the tie number of a file opened by ⎕NTIE or ⎕NCREATE.

output

If specified, this is a simple numeric integer that identifies the output device.

  • If it is positive or zero, it represents a file descriptor that must have been associated by the command that started Dyalog APL.
  • If it is negative, it represents the tie number of a file opened by ⎕NTIE or ⎕NCREATE.

The result R is a simple numeric vector. Each item of R is the numeric representation of an 8-bit code in the range 0 to 255 received from the input device. The meaning of the code is dependent on the characteristics of the input device. If a set of delimiters was defined by terminate, the last code returned will belong to that set.

⎕RTL (Response Time Limit) is an implicit argument of ⎕ARBIN. This allows a time limit to be imposed on input. If the time limit is reached, ⎕ARBIN returns with the codes read up to that point. This does not apply under Windows.

The operation will fail with a DOMAIN ERROR if Y contains anything other than numbers in the range 0-255, or if the current process does not have permission to read from or write to the specified device(s).

Examples (UNIX)

      )sh mkfifo ./fifo

      in←'./fifo'⎕NTIE 0
      out←'./fifo'⎕NTIE 0

      (10 (in out))⎕ARBIN ⎕UCS ⎕D
48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

      (⍬ (in out))⎕ARBIN 10
10

⍝ cope with parity on line ending 10
      ((10+0 128) (in out))⎕ARBIN 10
10