My favorite nonblocking read() API in Ruby

read_nonblocking.rb

class IO

  ##
  ## Easy-to-use nonblocking read()
  ##
  ## * returns non-empty string when data exists
  ## * returns empty string when data not exist
  ## * returns nil when EOF
  ##
  def read_nonblocking(size)
    return read_nonblock(size)
  rescue IO::EAGAINWaitReadable
    return ""
  rescue EOFError
    return nil
  end

end