Æsh (Another Extendable SHell) Readline

Æsh Readline is a library for handling console input with the goal to support most GNU Readline features.

For examples, have a look here: [Aesh Examples](https://github.com/aeshell/aesh-examples)

Features:

• Line editing

• History (search, persistence)

• Completion

• Masking

• Undo and Redo

• Paste buffer

• Emacs and Vi editing mode

• Supports POSIX OS’s and Windows

• Easy to configure (history file & buffer size, edit mode, streams, possible to override terminal implementations, etc)

• Support standard out and standard error

• Redirect

• Alias

• Pipeline

Scope:

The scope of Æsh Readline is to provide an easy to use Readline library. In the future Æsh will depend on Æsh Readline for terminal handling. Æsh will evolve further into Command handling and parsing.

How to build:

• Æsh Readline uses Maven (https://maven.apache.org/) as its build tool.

Æsh Developer List:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/aesh-dev

Examples

- We've added some small examples that can be used as a simple introduction and
  to also show what Æsh-Readline can do. After you have built the source, go to: examples/target/ and run:
java -cp aesh-readline-examples-(version-number).jar examples.Example
There are several example classes to choose from: examples.Example, examples.SimpleExample, examples.ShellExample and examples.Snake.


To get going:

import org.aesh.readline.Readline;
import org.aesh.readline.ReadlineBuilder;
import org.aesh.tty.terminal.TerminalConnection;

import java.io.IOException;


public class SimpleExample {

    public static void main(String... args) {
        TerminalConnection connection = new TerminalConnection();
        read(connection, ReadlineBuilder.builder().enableHistory(false).build(), "[aesh@rules]$ ");
        connection.openBlocking();
    }

    private static void read(TerminalConnection connection, Readline readline, String prompt) {
        readline.readline(connection, prompt, input -> {
            if(input != null && input.equals("exit")) {
                connection.write("we're exiting\n");
                connection.close();
            }
            else {
                connection.write("=====> "+input+"\n");
                read(connection, readline, prompt);
            }
        });
    }
}

Keys that are mapped by default in Æsh Readline
--------------------------------------
Note: C equals Control and M is Meta/Alt

EMACS Mode

• Move back one char : C-b or left arrow

• Move forward one char : C-f or right arrow

• Delete the character left of cursor : backspace

• Delete the character on cursor : C-d

• Undo : C-_ or C-x C-u

• Move to the start of the line : C-a or home

• Move to the end of the line : C-e or end

• Move forward a word, where a word is composed of letters and digits : M-f

• Move backward a word : M-b

• Previous line : up arrow

• Next line : down arrow

• Clear the screen, reprinting the current line at the top : C-l

• Delete next word to the right of cursor : M-d

• Complete : tab

• Kill the text from the current cursor position to the end of the line : C-k

• Kill from the cursor to the end of the current word, or, if between words, to the end of the next word : M-d

• Kill from the cursor to the previous whitespace : C-w

• Yank the most recently killed text back into the buffer at the cursor : C-y

• Search backward in the history for a particular string : C-r

• Search forward in the history for a particular string : C-s

• Switch to VI editing mode: M-C-j

VI Mode

In command mode: About every vi command is supported, here’s a few:

• Move back one char : h

• Move forward one char : l

• Delete the character left of cursor : X

• Delete the character on cursor : x

• Undo : u

• Move to the start of the line : 0

• Move to the end of the line : $

• Move forward a word, where a word is composed of letters and digits : w

• Move backward a word : b

• Previous line : k

• Next line : n

• Clear the screen, reprinting the current line at the top : C-l

• Delete next word to the right of cursor : dw

• Kill the text from the current cursor position to the end of the line : D and d$

• Kill from the cursor to the end of the current word, or, if between words, to the end of the next word : db

• Kill from the cursor to the previous whitespace : dB

• Yank the most recently killed text back into the buffer at the cursor : p (after cursor), P (before cursor)

• Add text into yank buffer : y + movement action

• Enable change mode : c

• Repeat previous action : .

• +++ (read a vi manual)

In edit mode:

• Search backward in the history for a particular string : C-r

• Search forward in the history for a particular string : C-s

• Delete the character left of cursor : backspace

Supported runtime properties:

• aesh.terminal : specify Terminal object

• aesh.editmode : specify either VI or EMACS edit mode

• aesh.readinputrc : specify if Æsh should read settings from inputrc

• aesh.inputrc : specify the inputrc file (must exist)

• aesh.historyfile : specify the history file (must exist)

• aesh.historypersistent : specify if Æsh should persist history file on exit

• aesh.historydisabled : specify if history should be disabled

• aesh.historysize : specify the maximum size of the history file

• aesh.logging : specify if logging should be enabled

• aesh.logfile : specify the log file

• aesh.disablecompletion : specify if completion should be disabled