outta

A tool for parsing terminal control codes and escape sequences from a stream of text.

Outta was born out of a need to learn more about the control codes sent from terminal programs to the terminals that host them. The Parser class can parse a stream of text and produce a sequence of Elements that tell you what codes (and regular text) were in it.

Here’s a quick example:

from outta.parser import Parser

# Here's the text to be parsed
text = "\x1b[4COut of\x1b[3Dta control!"

# Construct a Parser and feed the text in.
parser = Parser()
elements = tuple(parser.feed(text))

# Print each of the elements
for element in elements:
    print(">", element)

# Reconstruct the input text from the elements and print it
full_text = "".join(e.text for e in elements)
assert full_text == text
print(full_text)

and here’s how that look if you run it:

% python docs/example.py
> CursorForward(parameters=(4,), keywords={}, text='\x1b[4C')
> Out of
> CursorBack(parameters=(3,), keywords={}, text='\x1b[3D')
> ta control!
    Outta control!