I'd like to be able to implement VI-like keybindings in Perl (and also in VBA... but there's another story) and I've not found a module to do this.

For those who don't know Vi, in summary, it would need to

  1. Accept a keypattern for a command, optionally preceded by a repeat-count.
    • dd
    • 3w
  2. Disambiguate between partial-matches.
    • dd (e.g. delete a line)
    • ddd (custom action)
    e.g. if dd is typed, this action will fire after a timeout unless the last d is pressed.
  3. Allow custom mappings to map to a category of action. (Not sure if I can clearly explain this, here goes). Certain commands take a motion as a parameter: for example the delete command d.
    • dw Delete a word
    • d3w Delete 3 words
    • d} Delete next paragraph
    Other mappings can be made that map to movement commands.
    • :map foo w
    • d3foo delete 3 words
    e.g. when a motion is expected, foo is now one of the combinations that will be allowed, because it in turn is mapped to an atomic motion command.
I suppose that I want some sort of tree-based HoH structure with callbacks at combinations that exist. For example $keys->{d}{d}{callback} = \&delete_line.

Has anyone implemented this before in Perl, or is there a good guide to how this is done in general (Yes, I could read sources, but I don't really know C, and I could do with a gentler introduction before I do that). And has this been turned into a module? (I searched "key", "binding", "vi::", and "Term::" at CPAN but no joy: any other pointers?).

Cheerio!
Osfameron
http://osfameron.perlmonk.org/chickenman/

In reply to Implementing VI-like key-bindings by osfameron

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