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.

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 history. 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".

Features

Returns a reference to a hash with keys being features present in current implementation. Several optional features are used in the minimal 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 automatically (maybe subject to MinLine), and addhistory if addhistory method is not dummy.

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

EXPORTS

None