Reads at most slice.size bytes from this IO into slice. Returns the number of bytes read, which is 0 if and only if there is no more data to read (so checking for 0 is the way to detect end of file).

io = IO::Memory.new &quot;hello&quot;
slice = Bytes.new(4)
io.read(slice) # =&gt; 4
slice          # =&gt; Bytes[104, 101, 108, 108]
io.read(slice) # =&gt; 1
slice          # =&gt; Bytes[111, 101, 108, 108]
io.read(slice) # =&gt; 0

Source

write(slice : Bytes) : Nil

Writes the contents of slice into this IO.

io = IO::Memory.new
slice = Bytes.new(4) { |i| ('a'.ord + i).to_u8 }
io.write(slice)
io.to_s # =&gt; &quot;abcd&quot;

Source