Is it possible to have multiple STDIN streams?

I'm hoping to connect two USB barcode scanners to a single computer, allowing two people to scan ticket barcodes simultaneously. If both people scan at the same time, however, the input from 开发者_如何学运维STDIN will get messy.

Is there a way to set up different STDIN streams, each tied to a specific USB port? The console script is in Ruby, though pointers in any language would be much appreciated.

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Try connecting 2 USB barcode scanners first and test if what you are afraid of happens. I suspect all barcode digits are sent in a single burst while interrupts from other keyboard-like devices are on hold - so you won't get two barcodes "interlaced" together.

It's impossible to have more than one stdin, not literally. Other options will depend based on the OS you are on - on linux maybe the drivers provide you different character devices for different scanners. On Windows i believe you will have to learn talking the USB HID protocol... best if you don't have to do any of that.

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To answer your question directly, there is no way to have more than one STDIN. You're best bet would be to read the data from a file (I would think you should have a character device or something for this scanner)

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What if you use a Mutex to synchronize them so only one scan can be processed at a time?

Here's a tutorial on working with threads in Ruby

http://ruby-doc.org/docs/ProgrammingRuby/html/tut_threads.html