Re: [boost] Is there interest in a reusable stream-based console?

Subject: Re: [boost] Is there interest in a reusable stream-based console?
From: Joshua Boyce (raptorfactor_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-03-09 09:24:14

On Sat, Mar 10, 2012 at 12:26 AM, Michael Hava <mfh_at_[hidden]> wrote:

> @Julien:
> I haven't looked into boost::program_options yet, though I don't see a
> problem in integrating the current design in anything as it's merely a
> class that reads from a std::basic_istream and writes to a
> std::basic_ostream whilst calling registered callbacks based on the input…
>
> The parameters are currently instances of std::basic_string which are
> passed to the callback which can than operate on these parameters.
>
> On the list of commands thing: I thought about that for a while now and
> would say that something like Lua would be a perfect solution to be
> combined with the current design to allow that flexible scripting…
>
> @Artyom:
> I've never before heard about GNU Readline; does that mean that consoles
> like bash don't offer such a functionality to programs automatically
> (something that even cmd.exe does)?
>
> "Help" is meant to be a short help text on the command, similar to a
> man-page…
>
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Functionality like command history, autocomplete, etc should be a part of
the library, you can't just assume that it exists. For example, I wrote a
DirectX 'overlay' a while ago which I added a console to for debugging
purposes. Because this had to be implemented as part of the overlay it
needed to be written from scratch. If you want your library to be usable in
a wide variety of scenarios then you can't just assume that functionality
exists, because it often doesn't. Someone has to write that code. ;)

I am interested in your library and seeing it become a part of Boost,
however I agree that history, search, auto-complete, etc being integrated
into the library would be key to making it a more useful addition.

Do you have Git/SVN/etc repo up somewhere so people can check out the
current progress?

Thanks.