[Mono-list] StreamReader.Peek() and support for character devices

[Tony Garnock-Jones]

Hi all.

I noticed this oddity during interactive reading from the console:

   1. calling System.Console.In.Peek() at the start of a program
      blocks, waiting for the first character to be entered,
      and when one comes available, returns it (no surprises)

   2. Peek() works as you'd expect until just after the newline
      of the first line entered - at which point it returns -1
      even though I haven't typed the EOF character at it yet

   3. This doesn't fit my expectation of what would happen (which
      is that Peek() would again block, waiting for the next line
      of input - unless the stream was ended with ^D on unix or
      ^Z on windows, in which case -1 for an EOF signal is appropriate)

This happens both with Mono on Linux and MS.NET on Windows. If this is 
the correct, intended behaviour, then it seems inconsistent:

   a) it should immediately return -1 at program start, since no input
      is immediately available at that point either, OR

   b) Read() should return -1 at the end of the first line to be
      consistent with Peek(). It doesn't - it blocks.

What's correct? Can someone with a more detailed overview of the 
specified behaviour of StreamReader etc. please check?

   Tony