Æsh (Another Extendable SHell)

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

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 impls, etc)
• Support standard out and standard error
• Redirect
• Alias
• Pipeline

How to build:

• Æsh uses Gradle (http://gradle.org) as its build tool.

To get going:

import java.io.IOException;
import org.jboss.aesh.console.Console;
import org.jboss.aesh.console.ConsoleCallback;
import org.jboss.aesh.console.ConsoleOutput;
import org.jboss.aesh.console.Prompt;
import org.jboss.aesh.console.settings.SettingsBuilder;

public class Example2 {

  public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {

    final Console console = new Console(new SettingsBuilder().create());
    console.setPrompt(new Prompt("[aesh]$ "));

    console.setConsoleCallback( new ConsoleCallback() {
      @Override
      public int readConsoleOutput(ConsoleOutput output) throws IOException{
        console.pushToStdOut("======>\"" + output.getBuffer() + "\"\n");
        if(output.getBuffer().equals("quit"))
          console.stop();
        return 0;
      }  
    });   console.start();
  }   
}

Keys that are mapped by default in Æsh

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 jreadlin should persist history file on exit
• aesh.historydisabled : specify if history should be disabled
• aesh.historysize : speficy 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