NAME

Term::Prompt - Perl extension for prompting a user for information

SYNOPSIS

use Term::Prompt;
$value = &prompt(...);

use Term::Prompt qw(termwrap);
print &termwrap(...);

$Term::Prompt::MULTILINE_INDENT = '';

DESCRIPTION

This perl routine will take a prompt, a default response and a list of possible responses and deal with the user interface, (and the user!), by displaying the prompt, showing the default, and checking to be sure that the response is one of the legal choices. --Mark Henderson

Derived from im_prompt2.pl, from anlpasswd (see ftp://info.mcs.anl.gov/pub/systems/), with permission. Revisions for Perl 5, addition of alternative help text presentation, addition of floating point type, addition of regular expression type, addition of yes/no type, and line wrapping by E. Allen Smith.

Addition of menu functionality and $Term::Prompt::MULTILINE_INDENT by Matthew Persico.

Additional "types" that could be added would be a phone type, a social security type, a generic numeric pattern type...

The usage is the following:

x = do not care, a = alpha-only, n = numeric-only, i = ignore case
c = case sensitive, r = ranged by the low and high values
f = floating-point, y = yes/no, e = regular expression - Added by Allen
m = menu - Added by Matthew

$result = &prompt("x", "text prompt", "help prompt", "default" );

$result is whatever the user types.

$result = &prompt("a", "text prompt", "help prompt", "default" );

$result is a single "word" consisting of [A-Za-z] only. The response is rejected until it conforms.

$result = &prompt("n", "text prompt", "help prompt", "default" );

The result will be a positive integer or 0.

$result = &prompt("-n", "text prompt", "help prompt", "default" );

The result will be a negative integer or 0.

$result = &prompt("+-n", "text prompt", "help prompt", "default" );

The result will be a any integer or 0.

 $result = &prompt("i", "text prompt", "help prompt", "default",
	                 "legal_options-ignore-case-list");

 $result = &prompt("c", "text prompt", "help prompt", "default",
	                 "legal_options-case-sensitive-list");

 $result = &prompt("r", "text prompt", "help prompt", "default",
                       "low", "high");

 $result = &prompt("f", "text prompt", "help prompt", "default");

The result will be a floating-point number.

$result = &prompt("y", "text prompt", "help prompt", "default")

The result will be 1 for y, 0 for n. A default not starting with y or n (or the uc versions of these) will be treated as y for positive, n for negative.

$result = &prompt("e", "text prompt", "help prompt", "default",
                      "regular expression");

The regular expression for the last has ^ and $ surrounding it automatically; just put in .* before or after if you need to free it up before or after. - Allen

What, you might ask, is the difference between a "text prompt" and a "help prompt"? Think about the case where the "legal_options" look something like: "1-1000". Now consider what happens when you tell someone that "0" is not between 1-1000 and that the possible choices are: :) 1 2 3 4 5 ..... This is what the "help prompt" is for.

It will work off of unique parts of "legal_options".

Changed by Allen - if you capitalize the type of prompt, it will be treated as a true "help prompt"; that is, it will be printed ONLY if the menu has to be redisplayed due to and entry error. Otherwise, it will be treated as a list of options and displayed only the first time the menu is displayed.

Capitalizing the type of prompt will also mean that a return may be accepted as a response, even if there is no default; whether it actually is will depend on the type of prompt. Menus, for example, do not do this. The logic of a return being accepted as a response is controlled by the no_selection_accepted flag; see below.

 $result = &prompt("m", {
			 prompt           => "text prompt",
			 title            => 'My Silly Menu',
                         items            => [ qw (foo bar baz biff spork boof akak) ],
			 order            => 'across',
			 rows             => 1,
			 cols             => 1,
                         display_base     => 1,
			 return_base      => 0,
			 accept_multiple_selections => 0,
			 accept_empty_selection     => 0
			},
		   "help prompt", "default");

 @results = &prompt("m", {
			  prompt           => "text prompt",
			  title            => 'My Silly Menu',
                          items            => [ qw (foo bar baz biff spork boof akak) ],
			  order            => 'across',
			  rows             => 1,
			  cols             => 1,
			  display_base     => 1,
			  return_base      => 0,
			  accept_multiple_selections => 0,
			  accept_empty_selection     => 0
			 },
		    "help prompt", "default");

This will create a menu with numbered items to select. You replace the normal prompt argument with a hash reference containing this information:

prompt

The prompt string.

title

Text printed above the menu.

items

An array reference to the list of text items to display. They will be numbered ascending in the order presented.

order

If set to 'across', the item numbers run across the menu:

1) foo    2) bar    3) baz
4) biff   5) spork  6) boof
7) akak

If set to 'down', the item numbers run down the menu:

1) foo    4) biff   7) akak
2) bar    5) spork
3) baz    6) boof

'down' is the default.

rows,cols

Forces the number of rows and columns. Otherwise, the number of rows and columns is determined from the number of items and the maximum length of an item with its number.

Usually, you would set rows = 1 or cols = 1 to force a non-wrapped layout. Setting both in tandem is untested. Cavet programmer.

display_base,return_base

Internally, the items are indexed the 'Perl' way, from 0 to scalar -1. The display_base is the number added to the index on the menu display. The return_base is the number added to the index before the reply is returned to the programmer.

The defaults are 1 and 0, respectively.

accept_multiple_selections

When set to logical true (1 will suffice), more than one menu item may be selected. The return from prompt() will be an array or array ref, depending on how it is called.

The default is 0. The return value is a single scalar containing the selection.

accept_empty_selection

When set to logical true (1 will suffice), if no items are selected, the menu will not be repeated and the 'empty' selection will be returned. The value of an 'empty' selection is an empty array or a reference to same, if accept_multiple_selections is in effect, or undef if not.

Other Functions and Variables

termwrap

Part of Term::Prompt is the optionally exported function termwrap, which is used to wrap lines to the width of the currently selected filehandle (or to STDOUT or STDERR if the width of the current filehandle cannot be determined). It uses the GetTerminalSize function from Term::ReadKey then Text::Wrap.

MULTILINE_INDENT

This package variable holds the string to be used to indent lines of a multiline prompt, after the first line. The default is "\t", which is how the module worked before the variable was exposed. If yo do not want ANY indentation:

$Term::Prompt::MULTILINE_INDENT = '';

AUTHOR

Mark Henderson (henderson@mcs.anl.gov or systems@mcs.anl.gov)

Primary contact author: Allen Smith (easmith@beatrice.rutgers.edu)

Menu additions by Matthew O. Persico (persicom@acedsl.com)

SEE ALSO

perl, Term::ReadKey, and Text::Wrap.

cpanm Term::Prompt

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Term::Prompt