develooper Front page | perl.beginners | Postings from August 2009

Re: better readline?

Thread Previous | Thread Next
From:
Bryan R Harris
Date:
August 5, 2009 11:52
Subject:
Re: better readline?
Message ID:
C69F3F12.352AB%Bryan_R_Harris@raytheon.com


> On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 16:35, Bryan Harris<bryan@harrisfam.net> wrote:
> snip
>>> while ( defined (my $answer = $term->readline("Enter a date and
>>> note:", "8/2 Updated database")) ) {
>>> print "you said $answer\n";
>>> }
>> 
>> 
>> Thanks for the response Chas -- oddly it doesn't work.  This is what it
>> prints:
>> 
>> 2054% ./test
>> Enter a date and note:Uh.
>> you said Uh.
> snip
> 
> I assume you changed the second string to "Uh.".  If so, then that is
> what is supposed to happen.  $term->readline() prompts with the first
> string with a default of the second.  When you hit enter, the input is
> stored in $answer.  All my loop does with the answer is tell you what
> you said.

I didn't change anything, actually -- it never printed the "8/2 Updated
database" string.  It prompted with the "Enter a date and note:", I typed
"Uh." and that was it.  Maybe my version of perl doesn't have a good
Term::Readline::Perl?  How do I find out?  I'm on OS X 10.5, which is still
at perl 5.8.8.



> snip
>> I don't understand the documentation -- I don't know what a "package",
>> "stub", or "method" are in this context, and I've been perl coding for
>> nearly 10 years!  Obviously experience doesn't always equate to expertise.
> snip
> 
> Package refers to the multiple readline backends which are implemented
> as modules (Term::Readline::GNU, Term::Readline::Perl, etc.).  Some of
> these backends have more features than others, but you always have
> access to a base level of functionality in Term::Readline::Perl.
> 
> Stubs are short functions that don't do anything.  They are needed in
> case the backend does not provide a feature.  The stub will be called
> instead and do nothing.  This will prevent the program from blowing
> up, allowing it to run with reduced functionality.  For instance, a
> backend might not provide a history of previous entries.  In that
> case, addhistory won't do anything, but calling it won't cause a
> runtime error.

Makes sense.


> A method is a subroutine called on an object:
> 
> $obj->method();

I've never used objects -- do I need to understand them to use
Term::Readline?

Thanks again, I really appreciate it.

- Bryan




Thread Previous | Thread Next


nntp.perl.org: Perl Programming lists via nntp and http.
Comments to Ask Bjørn Hansen at ask@perl.org | Group listing | About