-- source: -- requires: luajit -- -- Implements a basic binding for popen that allows non-blocking reads -- returned "file" table only supports :read(with an optional size argument, no mode etc.) and :close local function non_blocking_popen(cmd, read_buffer_size) local ffi = require("ffi") -- C functions that we need ffi.cdef([[ void* popen(const char* cmd, const char* mode); int pclose(void* stream); int fileno(void* stream); int fcntl(int fd, int cmd, int arg); int *__errno_location (); ssize_t read(int fd, void* buf, size_t count); ]]) -- you can compile a simple C programm to find these values(Or look in the headers) local F_SETFL = 4 local O_NONBLOCK = 2048 local EAGAIN = 11 -- this "array" holds the errno variable local _errno = ffi.C.__errno_location() -- the buffer for reading from the process local read_buffer_size = tonumber(read_buffer_size) or 2048 local read_buffer = ffi.new('uint8_t[?]',read_buffer_size) -- get a FILE* for our command local file = assert(ffi.C.popen(cmd, "r")) -- turn the FILE* to a fd(int) for fcntl local fd = ffi.C.fileno(file) -- set non-blocking mode for read assert(ffi.C.fcntl(fd, F_SETFL, O_NONBLOCK)==0, "fcntl failed") -- close the process, prevent reading, allow garbage colletion function file_close(self) ffi.C.pclose(file) self.read_buffer = nil read_buffer = nil self.read = function() return nil, "closed"end end -- read up to size bytes from the process. Returns data(string) and number of bytes read if successfull, -- nil, "EAGAIN" if there is no data aviable, and -- nil, "closed" if the process has ended local read = ffi.C.read function file_read(self, size) local _size = math.min(read_buffer_size, size) while true do local nbytes = read(fd,read_buffer,_size) if nbytes > 0 then local data = ffi.string(read_buffer, nbytes) return data, nbytes elseif (nbytes == -1) and (_errno[0] == EAGAIN) then return nil, "EAGAIN" else file_close(self) return nil, "closed" end end end return { _fd = fd, _file = file, _read_buffer = read_buffer, _read_buffer_size = read_buffer_size, read = file_read, close = file_close } end return { non_blocking_popen = non_blocking_popen }