Terminal Input

You can read the user’s keyboard input into the kOS terminal using this structure. You obtain this structure by calling Terminal:INPUT.

Input is buffered

Input is buffered if the user types faster than you process the input. (For example, if you have code that reads 1 character per second, and the user types faster than 1 character per second, then the letters they typed “in between” your reads are not lost. It just takes time for your program to catch up to the backlog and finish processing them all.) This buffer is active for the entire duration of the program, which means that you must clear the buffer using TerminalInput:CLEAR if you need to ensure that the contents are in response to a prompt.

Input is blocking

If you attempt to read a character of input and there are none available (because the user hasn’t typed anything yet for you to read), then your program will pause and get stuck there until the user presses a key. If you want to check first to find out if a key is available before you read it, use the HASCHAR suffix described below.

Detecting special keys

You can detect some special keys that don’t form normal ASCII codes, such as the Left arrow, Page Up, and so on.

Internally KOS uses its own mapping of these characters to its own Unicode codes. (This is part of the system it uses to support a few different types of terminal in the telnet module). You can see some of these code names and use them to test against your input characters. Some of the suffixes to TerminalInput are for this purpose.

Example:

set ch to terminal:input:getchar().

if ch = terminal:input:DOWNCURSORONE {
  print "You typed the down-arrow key.".
}
if ch = terminal:input:UPCURSORONE {
  print "You typed the up-arrow key.".
}

Cannot read control-C

You cannot read the control-C character in your program, because it causes your program to break.

Cannot read “shift” or “alt”

You cannot read the “shift” or “alt” keypresses pressed by themselves because they send no characters to the terminal until combined with other characters. (For example “shift A” sends an “A” character, while “A” without shift sends a “a” character, but you can’t just read the shift key itself.) This is a deliberate decision because the kOS terminal in the game is supposed to be identical to a telnet terminal window, and you can’t “send” these sorts of keypresses as characters down a stream.

Structure

structure TerminalInput

Members

Suffix	Type	Get/Set	Description
GETCHAR	String	Get	(Blocking) I/O to read the next character of terminal input.
HASCHAR	Boolean	Get	True if there is at least 1 character of input waiting.
CLEAR	None	Method Call	Call this method to throw away all waiting input characters, flushing the input queue.
BACKSPACE	String	Get	A string for testing if the character read is a backspace.
DELETERIGHT	String	Get	A string for testing if the character read is the delete (to the right) key.
RETURN	String	Get	A string for testing if the character read is the return key.
ENTER	String	Get	An alias for RETURN
UPCURSORONE	String	Get	A string for testing if the character read is the up-arrow key.
DOWNCURSORONE	String	Get	A string for testing if the character read is the down-arrow key.
LEFTCURSORONE	String	Get	A string for testing if the character read is the left-arrow key.
RIGHTCURSORONE	String	Get	A string for testing if the character read is the right-arrow key.
HOMECURSOR	String	Get	A string for testing if the character read is the HOME key.
ENDCURSOR	String	Get	A string for testing if the character read is the END key.
PAGEUPCURSOR	String	Get	A string for testing if the character read is the PageUp key.
PAGEDOWNCURSOR	String	Get	A string for testing if the character read is the PageDown key.

TerminalInput:GETCHAR()

Access:Get (Method call) Returns:String

Read the next character of terminal input. If the user hasn’t typed anything in that is still waiting to be read, then this will “block” (meaning it will pause the execution of the program) until there is a character that has been typed that can be processed.

The character will be expressed in a string containing 1 char.

If you need to check against “unprintable” characters such as backspace (control-H) and so on, you can do so with the unchar function, or by using the aliases described elsewhere in this structure.

TerminalInput:HASCHAR

Access:Get (method call) Type:Boolean

True if there is at least 1 character of input waiting. If this is false then that would mean that an attempt to call GETCHAR would block and wait for user input. If this is true then an attempt to call GETCHAR would return immediately with an answer.

You can simulate non-blocking I/O like so:

// Read a char if it exists, else just keep going:
if terminal:input:haschar {
  process_one_char(terminal:input:getchar()).
}

TerminalInput:CLEAR()

Access:Get (method call) Returns:None

Call this method to throw away all waiting input characters, flushing the input queue.

TerminalInput:BACKSPACE

Access:Get Type:String

A string for testing if the character read is a backspace.

TerminalInput:DELETERIGHT

Access:Get Type:String

A string for testing if the character read is the delete (to the right) key.

TerminalInput:RETURN

Access:Get Type:String

A string for testing if the character read is the return key.

TerminalInput:ENTER

Access:Get Type:String

TerminalInput:UPCURSORONE

Access:Get Type:String

A string for testing if the character read is the up-arrow key.

TerminalInput:DOWNCURSORONE

Access:Get Type:String

A string for testing if the character read is the down-arrow key.

TerminalInput:LEFTCURSORONE

Access:Get Type:String

A string for testing if the character read is the left-arrow key.

TerminalInput:RIGHTCURSORONE

Access:Get Type:String

A string for testing if the character read is the right-arrow key.

TerminalInput:HOMECURSOR

Access:Get Type:String

A string for testing if the character read is the HOME key.

TerminalInput:ENDCURSOR

Access:Get Type:String

A string for testing if the character read is the END key.

TerminalInput:PAGEUPCURSOR

Access:Get Type:String

A string for testing if the character read is the PageUp key.

TerminalInput:PAGEDOWNCURSOR

Access:Get Type:String

A string for testing if the character read is the PageDown key.