tl.cli 0.2

Various command line interface utilities. - readline-related utilities - an enhanced command shell - text editing using an external editor - display of long text using a pager

Various command line interface utilities.

This package requires Python 2, at least 2.5.

tl.readline: readline related utilities

API functions of this module act as no-ops if readline is not present.

History handling

use_history(name):

Switch between multiple named histories, e.g. when embedding one command interpreter inside another one.

with_history(name):

Create a function decorator that runs a function with a named readline history, maintaining a stack of histories for nested function calls.

Tab completion

use_completion():

Configure readline to use tab completion.

static_completions(strings):

Create a completer function usable with readline that completes partial text based on a static list of strings. The completer function computes an iterable of matches.

completion_generator(completions):

A function decorator that takes a completer function and returns a completion generator usable with readline. The completion generator returns successive matches on partial text based on a state parameter.

input(prompt, default=None, completions=None):

A rich version of raw_input that in the presence of readline, allows for commad line editing the default value and using custom tab completion. Without readline, it displays the default value after the prompt.

filename_completions(base_dir):

Create a completer function usable with readline that completes partial text based on file names from the file system. The completer function computes an iterable of matches.

tl.cmd: an enhanced command shell

tl.cmd.Cmd is a command shell based on Python’s cmd.Cmd that adds some generic usability features, some of them only of interest to developers.

• Exceptions are caught instead of aborting the command loop. The traceback is stored for subsequent introspection by the postmortem debugger. The debugger is run by the postmortem command.

• The python command runs a Python shell to access the command interpreter directly.

• End-of-file sent by the terminal quits the command loop.

• Empty input lines are ignored instead of repeating the previous command.

• Commands may be abbreviated as long as abbreviations are unambiguous.

• When using tab completion, the cursor is positioned more conveniently.

• Online help for commands is generated from the docstrings of the do_* methods that implement them where no help_* methods exist.

tl.cli.edit: text editing

tl.cli.edit.edit(text, editor=None, file_encoding=None):

Runs the user’s favourite text editor (or vi) on a temp file containing the text string, then reads it back in and returns the edited content.

tl.cli.page: paging through text

tl.cli.page.page(text, pager=None):

Runs the user’s favourite pager (or more) on a text string or stream which is sent to the pager’s standard input.

tl.cli.page.page_file(path, pager=None):

Runs the user’s favourite pager (or more) on a file whose path is passed to the pager as its only argument.

Contact

This package is written by Thomas Lotze. Please contact the author at <[e-mail]> to provide feedback, suggestions, or contributions.

See also <http://www.thomas-lotze.de/en/software/>.