Fancyline

Readline-esque library with fancy features!

Compared with Readline

Installation

Add this to your application's shard.yml:

dependencies:
  fancyline:
    github: Papierkorb/fancyline

Tutorial

Let's build a simple system shell. We want it to do syntax highlighting, do tab-autocompletion, and show a quicktip about the current command. We're focusing on the REPL part, so we'll stick to using system() to use /bin/sh to handle pipes etc..

Don't want to paste all of these yourself? Fear not, check out samples/tutorial/.

There are more general samples in samples/.

Step 0: Most basic usage

Let's start with something simple: A greeter. The user is asked for a name, and that name is then greeted. All we need to do is createing a Fancyline instance and then calling #readline on it with our prompt.

require "fancyline"

fancy = Fancyline.new # Build a shell object
input = fancy.readline("Name: ") # Show the prompt
puts "Hello, #{input}!"

Complete source

Step 1: The REPL skeleton

The skeleton of a REPL (Read Evaluate Print Loop) is really what it says on the tin: A loop, which accepts input, runs it, and then prints the output. Replace the last file with the following:

require "fancyline"

fancy = Fancyline.new # Build a shell object
puts "Press Ctrl-C or Ctrl-D to quit."

while input = fancy.readline("$ ") # Ask the user for input
  system(input) # And run it
end

Now we can run commands and have a command history. Pretty decent for a few lines.

Possible improvement: Make cd work by implementing it. This series will not.

Complete source

Step 2: Simple syntax-highlighting

Many people seem to enjoy having their shell do some syntax-highlighting to show the command, arguments, or similar. So let's add it to our shell! We use the display middleware of Fancyline, which is called with the line buffer and can then add colors to it. Make sure to not change the visual size of the line.

Just add this code snippet to your source file:

fancy.display.add do |ctx, line, yielder|
  # We underline command names
  line = line.gsub(/^\w+/, &.colorize.mode(:underline))
  line = line.gsub(/(\|\s*)(\w+)/) do
    "#{$1}#{$2.colorize.mode(:underline)}"
  end

  # And turn --arguments green
  line = line.gsub(/--?\w+/, &.colorize(:green))

  # Then we call the next middleware with the modified line
  yielder.call ctx, line
end

Now, everytime the user hits a key, Fancyline will render the line buffer, which calls all display middlewares in order.

Possible improvement: Try to add better highlighting.

Complete source

Step 3: Custom key bindings

One thing that's really useful is being able to pull up the man-page of the command you're currently working on without having to type it yourself. We add a key-binding for Ctrl-H (^H) to do this for us:

def get_command(ctx)
  line = ctx.editor.line
  cursor = ctx.editor.cursor.clamp(0, line.size - 1)
  pipe = line.rindex('|', cursor)
  line = line[(pipe + 1)..-1] if pipe

  line.split.first?
end

fancy.actions.set Fancyline::Key::Control::CtrlH do |ctx|
  if command = get_command(ctx) # Figure out the current command
    system("man #{command}") # And open the man-page of it
  end
end

If you look at line 3, you see we're clamping the value of ctx.editor.cursor to the range of [0...line.size]. Fancyline allows the cursor to be at line.size, so just after the line buffer, allowing the user to append characters at the end of it. But Crystal doesn't like that and may raise an exception if the cursor is currently at the end of the line.

Now, run the program, type a command, and hit Ctrl-H to show the man-page.

Possible improvement: Add a key-binding which saves the last line as script.sh.

Complete source

Step 4: Showing information below the prompt

Next we learn about using the sub_info middleware, which allows us to display additional lines of text under the prompt. We use this feature to give the user a short hint about what the current command will do using the whatis program.

fancy.sub_info.add do |ctx, yielder|
  lines = yielder.call(ctx) # First run the next part of the middleware chain

  if command = get_command(ctx) # Grab the command
    help_line = `whatis #{command} 2> /dev/null`.lines.first?
    lines << help_line if help_line # Display it if we got something
  end

  lines # Return the lines so far
end

When you're writing sub_info middlewares, make sure that each line fits in a single line in the terminal. Fancyline::Context#columns can tell you how much space you have. If your middleware wants to display more, just append more lines.

Possible improvement: Create a sub_info middleware which shows the current time or the weather.

Complete source

Step 5: Tab Auto-completion

Finally the moment you've been probably waiting for: Adding the most useful feature a REPL can offer: Auto-completion! For this we add autocompletion of paths.

Also look at the sample source for this, it offers some more explanation comments.

fancy.autocomplete.add do |ctx, range, word, yielder|
  completions = yielder.call(ctx, range, word)

  # The `word` may not suffice for us here.  It'd be fine however for command
  # name completion.

  # Find the range of the current path name near the cursor.
  prev_char = ctx.editor.line[ctx.editor.cursor - 1]?
  if !word.empty? || { '/', '.' }.includes?(prev_char)
    # Then we try to find where it begins and ends
    arg_begin = ctx.editor.line.rindex(' ', ctx.editor.cursor - 1) || 0
    arg_end = ctx.editor.line.index(' ', arg_begin + 1) || ctx.editor.line.size
    range = (arg_begin + 1)...arg_end

    # And using that range we just built, we can find the path the user entered
    path = ctx.editor.line[range].strip
  end

  # Find suggestions and append them to the completions array.
  Dir["#{path}*"].each do |suggestion|
    base = File.basename(suggestion)
    suggestion += '/' if Dir.exists? suggestion
    completions << Fancyline::Completion.new(range, suggestion, base)
  end

  completions
end

Now how does this work? We're now using the third middleware Fancyline offers: autocomplete. It is used whenever the user hits TAB to acquire completion suggestions. This is also the first time we're offering the user a new interaction flow: Multiple TAB hits cycle through the list of suggestions. You can build custom flows yourself by creating a Widget. See below for more on that.

Possible improvement: Add a second autocomplete middleware for command completion.

Complete source

Step 6: Wrapping things up

Let's wrap this up and add the last things we expect from a shell:

1. Persistant history
2. Not printing a stacktrace on Ctrl-C

For this we modify our trusty while-loop:

HISTFILE = "#{Dir.current}/history.log"

if File.exists? HISTFILE # Does it exist?
  puts "  Reading history from #{HISTFILE}"
  File.open(HISTFILE, "r") do |io| # Open a handle
    fancy.history.load io # And load it
  end
end

begin # Get rid of stacktrace on ^C
  while input = fancy.readline("$ ")
    system(input)
  end
rescue err : Fancyline::Interrupt
  puts "Bye."
end

File.open(HISTFILE, "w") do |io| # So open it writable
  fancy.history.save io # And save.  That's it.
end

Now we're done! We built a shell (Or a front-end for a shell) which already offers lots of functionality expected from a modern shell, all in about 100 lines of code. There's more Fancyline allows you to do, but this should give you a pretty good insight in how things are supposed to work. Happy hacking!

Complete source

Middlewares

Fancyline uses cute middlewares to allow you augmenting default behaviour. If you're familiar with Ruby Rack or Kemal.cr you know already the gist of them.

If you're not: Middlewares are basically daisy-chained method calls, which allow you to change their calling order or add your own calls into the chain.

display

This middleware lets you change how the editor shows the line from the user on the screen. This is mostly useful to add syntax-highlighting, showing while the user is typing.

Have a look at input_highlighting.cr.

autocomplete

This middleware allows you to add auto-completion to your shell. The middleware is called by Fancyline::Widget::Completion to present the user with the list of suggestion to choose from.

See autocompletion.cr.

sub_info

Displays additional lines of text below the prompt. Used by many widgets to show a small interface.

See sub_info.cr.

Key Bindings

These are the default key bindings. You can add your own in Fancyline#actions. See also key_binding.cr.

Widgets

Fancyline uses "Widgets" to augment the behaviour of a running prompt temporarily. At any time, there may be up to one widget active. If one is active, all user input is first sent to it. The widget may then choose an action to take, like acting upon it or continuing default operation.

Some fundamental features you expect to work from a prompt are implemented as widget. If you want to create your own, have a look at Fancyline::Widget and widget.cr.

Completion

Implements TAB-autocompletion using the autocomplete middleware. The original word can always be recovered by tabbing "outside" the list of suggestions.

If no suggestions were found, the widget stops itself right away. The user does not get any visual feedback of this. If exactly one suggestion was found, it is applied, and the user can choose between the suggestion and the original input using Tab.

History

Implements a history, which can be navigated using the Up and Down buttons. The original input line is retained and can be accessed by going beyond the most recent history entry.

HistorySearch

Implements a history search, which lets you find a specific history entry. The original input line is retained and can be accessed by going beyond the most recent match.

Shows a sub-info line in the format of Search X/Y: NEEDLE, where

• X shows the current position in the search matches (Up/Down)
• Y shows total count of matches
• NEEDLE shows the current search query

If X is showing 0, you're seeing the original line input.

If NEEDLE contains only lower-case input, the search is case-insensitive. If it also contains upper-case input, the search is case-sensitive.

To Do

• Long input lines, longer than the terminal can display, will break

Contributing

1. Fork it ( https://github.com/Papierkorb/fancyline/fork )
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create a new Pull Request

License

This library is licensed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0 ("MPL-2").

For a copy of the full license text see the included LICENSE file.

For a legally non-binding explanation visit: tl;drLegal

Still looking down here?

Thanks for reading, now do something cool and enjoy your day!