NAME
libtecla - An interactive command-line input library.
SYNOPSIS
gcc ... -ltecla -lcurses
DESCRIPTION
The tecla library provides programs with interactive command
line editing facilities, similar to those of the unix tcsh
shell. In addition to simple command-line editing, it sup-
ports recall of previously entered command lines, TAB com-
pletion of file names or other tokens, and in-line wild-card
expansion of filenames. The internal functions which perform
file-name completion and wild-card expansion are also avail-
able externally for optional use by the calling program.
The various parts of the library are documented in the fol-
lowing man pages:
gl_get_line(3) - The interactive line-input module.
cpl_complete_word(3) - The word completion module.
ef_expand_file(3) - The filename expansion module.
pca_lookup_file(3) - A directory-list based filename
lookup and completion module.
THREAD SAFETY
If the library is compiled with -D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=199506L,
reentrant versions of as many functions as possible are
used. This includes using getpwuid_r() and getpwnam_r()
instead of getpwuid() and getpwnam() when looking up the
home directories of specific users in the password file (for
~user/ expansion), and readdir_r() instead of readdir() for
reading directory entries when doing filename completion.
The reentrant version of the library is usually called
libtecla_r.a instead of libtecla.a, so if only the latter is
available, it probably isn't the correct version to link
with threaded programs.
Reentrant functions for iterating through the password file
aren't available, so when the library is compiled to be
reentrant, TAB completion of incomplete usernames in ~user-
name/ expressions is disabled. This doesn't disable expan-
sion of complete ~username expressions, which can be done
reentrantly, or expansion of the parts of filenames that
follow them, so this doesn't remove much functionality.
The terminfo functions setupterm(), tigetstr(), tigetnum()
and tputs() also aren't reentrant, but very few programs
will want to interact with multiple terminals, so this
shouldn't prevent this library from being used in threaded
programs.
TRIVIA
In Spanish, "teclas" are the keys of a keyboard. Since this
library centers on keyboard input, and given that I wrote
the library while working in Chile, this seemed like a suit-
able name.
FILES
libtecla.a - The tecla library.
libtecla.h - The tecla header file.
~/.teclarc - The tecla personal customization file.
SEE ALSO
gl_get_line(3), ef_expand_file(3), cpl_complete_word(3),
pca_lookup_file(3)
AUTHOR
Martin Shepherd (mcs@astro.caltech.edu)