In article <40FE1F86.6030005 / hypermetrics.com>,
  Hal Fulton <hal9000 / hypermetrics.com> writes:

>>>I am not sure I like readchunk. I think I prefer an underscore
>>>at least. Other ideas might be:
>>>   read_partial   # looks better with underscore?
>>>   read_part
>>>   read_any
>>>   read_all  (?)
>>>   read_waiting (?)
>>>   read_avail     # meaning "available"
>>>   read_bytes
>>>   readbytes      # looks ok without underscore?
>> 
>> An underscore is inconsistent with other IO read??? methods: readchar,
>> readline, readlines.
>
> I see. Well, maybe:
>     readchars    # with an s
>     readstr      # could be 'string' or 'stream'
>     readsys      # reminds us of sysread

any: doesn't represent readpartial's behavior.
all: readpartial doesn't return all data from a stream.
waiting: readpartial may return non-waiting data if buffer is empty.
avail: readpartial may return data which is not available when readpartial is called.
bytes: doesn't represent the difference from IO#read.
chars: readpartial doesn't treat characters and encodings.
str: doesn't represent the difference from IO#read.
sys: readpartial is not system call.

> But I do not really care much, readchunk is ok if it works. :)

Good name is necessary to incorporate a method to ruby.
-- 
Tanaka Akira