I have no idea about curses, but would it maybe be possible to stop the timeout (or set it real high) and do something like: 
while(1) {
    my $chr = getch();
    if($chr ne "\n") {
      push(@someary, $chr);
    } else {
      print "\n"
      last;
    }
}

[download]
I'm not sure if this would help you at all, and I haven't tested that code, so take it with a grain of salt.

In reply to Re: nonblocking read with ncurses by BastardOperator
in thread nonblocking read with ncurses by Anonymous Monk

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