To allow your program to continue to execute in the event no data is received. This enables you to do some error recovery if necessary. Otherwise you will sit waiting on the read forever and will not be able to exit you program very easily.
Mark Yedinak
Certified LabVIEW Architect
LabVIEW Champion
"Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?"
Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot
