


Term::ReadLine(3pPerl Programmers Reference GuiTerm::ReadLine(3p)


NAME
       Term::ReadLine - Perl interface to various "readline"
       packages. If no real package is found, substitutes stubs
       instead of basic functions.

SYNOPSIS
         use Term::ReadLine;
         $term = new Term::ReadLine 'Simple Perl calc';
         $prompt = "Enter your arithmetic expression: ";
         $OUT = $term->OUT || STDOUT;
         while ( defined ($_ = $term->readline($prompt)) ) {
           $res = eval($_), "\n";
           warn $@ if $@;
           print $OUT $res, "\n" unless $@;
           $term->addhistory($_) if /\S/;
         }


DESCRIPTION
       This package is just a front end to some other packages.
       At the moment this description is written, the only such
       package is Term-ReadLine, available on CPAN near you. The
       real target of this stub package is to set up a common
       interface to whatever Readline emerges with time.

Minimal set of supported functions
       All the supported functions should be called as methods,
       i.e., either as

         $term = new Term::ReadLine 'name';

       or as

         $term->addhistory('row');

       where $term is a return value of Term::ReadLine->Init.

       ""ReadLine""
                   returns the actual package that executes the
                   commands. Among possible values are
                   "Term::ReadLine::Gnu", "Term::ReadLine::Perl",
                   "Term::ReadLine::Stub Exporter".

       ""new""     returns the handle for subsequent calls to
                   following functions. Argument is the name of
                   the application. Optionally can be followed by
                   two arguments for "IN" and "OUT" filehandles.
                   These arguments should be globs.

       ""readline""
                   gets an input line, possibly with actual
                   "readline" support. Trailing newline is
                   removed. Returns "undef" on "EOF".




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Term::ReadLine(3pPerl Programmers Reference GuiTerm::ReadLine(3p)


       ""addhistory""
                   adds the line to the history of input, from
                   where it can be used if the actual "readline"
                   is present.

       ""IN"", $""OUT""
                   return the filehandles for input and output or
                   "undef" if "readline" input and output cannot
                   be used for Perl.

       ""MinLine"" If argument is specified, it is an advice on
                   minimal size of line to be included into his-
                   tory.  "undef" means do not include anything
                   into history. Returns the old value.

       ""findConsole""
                   returns an array with two strings that give
                   most appropriate names for files for input and
                   output using conventions ""<$in"", "">out"".

       Attribs     returns a reference to a hash which describes
                   internal configuration of the package. Names
                   of keys in this hash conform to standard con-
                   ventions with the leading "rl_" stripped.

       ""Features""
                   Returns a reference to a hash with keys being
                   features present in current implementation.
                   Several optional features are used in the min-
                   imal interface: "appname" should be present if
                   the first argument to "new" is recognized, and
                   "minline" should be present if "MinLine"
                   method is not dummy.  "autohistory" should be
                   present if lines are put into history automat-
                   ically (maybe subject to "MinLine"), and
                   "addhistory" if "addhistory" method is not
                   dummy.

                   If "Features" method reports a feature
                   "attribs" as present, the method "Attribs" is
                   not dummy.

Additional supported functions
       Actually "Term::ReadLine" can use some other package, that
       will support reacher set of commands.

       All these commands are callable via method interface and
       have names which conform to standard conventions with the
       leading "rl_" stripped.

       The stub package included with the perl distribution
       allows some additional methods:





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Term::ReadLine(3pPerl Programmers Reference GuiTerm::ReadLine(3p)


       ""tkRunning""
                   makes Tk event loop run when waiting for user
                   input (i.e., during "readline" method).

       ""ornaments""
                   makes the command line stand out by using
                   termcap data.  The argument to "ornaments"
                   should be 0, 1, or a string of a form
                   ""aa,bb,cc,dd"".  Four components of this
                   string should be names of terminal capacities,
                   first two will be issued to make the prompt
                   standout, last two to make the input line
                   standout.

       ""newTTY""  takes two arguments which are input filehandle
                   and output filehandle.  Switches to use these
                   filehandles.

       One can check whether the currently loaded ReadLine pack-
       age supports these methods by checking for corresponding
       "Features".

EXPORTS
       None

ENVIRONMENT
       The environment variable "PERL_RL" governs which ReadLine
       clone is loaded. If the value is false, a dummy interface
       is used. If the value is true, it should be tail of the
       name of the package to use, such as "Perl" or "Gnu".

       As a special case, if the value of this variable is space-
       separated, the tail might be used to disable the ornaments
       by setting the tail to be "o=0" or "ornaments=0".  The
       head should be as described above, say

       If the variable is not set, or if the head of space-sepa-
       rated list is empty, the best available package is loaded.

         export "PERL_RL=Perl o=0"     # Use Perl ReadLine without ornaments
         export "PERL_RL= o=0"         # Use best available ReadLine without ornaments

       (Note that processing of "PERL_RL" for ornaments is in the
       discretion of the particular used "Term::ReadLine::*"
       package).












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