ARGF#getc

ARGF.getc → String or nil

static VALUE
argf_getc(VALUE argf)
{
    VALUE ch;

  retry:
    if (!next_argv()) return Qnil;
    if (ARGF_GENERIC_INPUT_P()) {
        ch = forward_current(rb_intern("getc"), 0, 0);
    }
    else {
        ch = rb_io_getc(ARGF.current_file);
    }
    if (NIL_P(ch) && ARGF.next_p != -1) {
        argf_close(argf);
        ARGF.next_p = 1;
        goto retry;
    }

    return ch;
}

Reads the next character from ARGF and returns it as a String. Returns nil at the end of the stream.

ARGF treats the files named on the command line as a single file created by concatenating their contents. After returning the last character of the first file, it returns the first character of the second file, and so on.

For example:

$ echo "foo" > file
$ ruby argf.rb file

ARGF.getc  #=> "f"
ARGF.getc  #=> "o"
ARGF.getc  #=> "o"
ARGF.getc  #=> "\n"
ARGF.getc  #=> nil
ARGF.getc  #=> nil

See also #getbyte #gets #fileno #inplace_mode also in 4.1 · 4.0 · 3.3 · 3.2 · 3.1 · 3.0

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