xiper has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I would like to replicate the shell-like 'command line history' feature in a perl program, where you can use the up & down arrows to browse, edit, and execute past commands entered.

I have a command line based perl program that currently uses a basic prompt loop, something like: 

while( 1 )
{
  print '> ';
  chomp( $cmd = <STDIN> );
  &do_stuff( $cmd );
}

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I realise this may turn out to be overly complex, but i would be interested to find out what would be required. I've had a quick look at Curses, although not sure it's what i'm after. Any pointers & examples would be greatly appreciated.

- ><iper 

my JAPH:
  print"Just another Perl hacker\n";
  #    ^ look, no space! pretty tricky hey?

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Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Perl-based command line history?
by esh (Pilgrim) on Aug 15, 2003 at 00:03 UTC

    Check out Term::ReadLine.

    You should be able to steal from the sample code quite easily.

    Note: I don't know why, but on my setup (RH9.0, Perl 5.6.1) I can press UP once to get to the previous line but have to press UP two more times to get to the one before that. Everything else works like a charm.

    -- Eric Hammond

[reply]
      *sigh* Is that all?!? Why's everything in perl have to be so simple?!? :)

      esh++ many thanks!

      Possible trap for future readers (who are probably brighter than i): you have to also have installed Term::ReadLine::Perl or, preferably, Term::ReadLine::Gnu (which in turn, needs the gnu readline library ). 

      my JAPH:
  print"Just another Perl hacker\n";
  #    ^ look, no space! pretty tricky hey?

      [download]
[reply]
[d/l]

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