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 implementations, etc)

• Support standard out and standard error

• Redirect

• Alias

• Pipeline

How to build:

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

  • When you start a Gradle build via the wrapper [gradlew], Gradle will be automatically downloaded and used to run the build

    • Windows: gradlew.bat

    • Linux: gradlew

Æsh Developer List:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/aesh-dev

To get going:

import java.io.IOException;

import org.jboss.aesh.console.Console;
import org.jboss.aesh.console.ConsoleCallback;
import org.jboss.aesh.console.ConsoleOperation;
import org.jboss.aesh.console.Prompt;
import org.jboss.aesh.console.settings.SettingsBuilder;

public class Example {

    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 execute(ConsoleOperation output) {
                console.getShell().out().println("======>\"" + output.getBuffer());
                if (output.getBuffer().equals("quit")) {
                    try {
                        console.stop();
                    } catch (IOException e) {
                        e.printStackTrace();
                    }
                }
                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 Æsh should persist history file on exit

• aesh.historydisabled : specify if history should be disabled

• aesh.historysize : specify 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