lua-tmt

Simple lua binding for libtmt, the tiny mock terminal library.

This is a terminal emulation library, it takes strings with terminal escape sequences, and updates a cell-matrix and a few paramters accordingly.

With a library like lpty, one can create terminal multiplexers, or GUI terminal emulators.

Installation

After cloning the repository, or downloading the .zip, modify the makefile if needed. By default, it compiles using the Lua 5.1 headers.

Then build the project by running make in this folder.

The generated tmt.so is the Lua library and can be copied to your project path, or(to install systemwide) somewhere in lua's package.cpath.

To list Lua's default package.cpath from bash: lua -e "print((package.cpath:gsub(';', '\n')))"

Usage

The library(tmt = require("tmt")) exports one function(tmt.new(w,h)) and a lookup table(tmt.special_keys[KEY_NAME] = terminal_escape_code): A terminal returned by term = tmt.new supports the following functions:

• events = term:write(str) writes the string str to the terminal.

  The string can contain terminal escape sequences supported by libtmt.

  events is a table containing a list of events. Each events has a type.
  The following events might be generated:

  • screen the screen content has been updated
  • bell the terminal should do whatever bell should do
  • answer the terminal has recived an answer. The answer is in the answer-field in the event's table
  • cursor the cursor has moved. The new x,y is stored in the event's table at x and y.

• screen = term:get_screen() gets the current screen content as a table.

  The returned table contains 3 fields, width(screen width), height(screen height), and lines.

  lines is a list of line-tables, each a list of cells, so that
  lines[y] contains a line-table(list of cells), and lines[y][x] contains a cell.

  Each line also contains a field dirty, which is true if the line was changed since it was last drawn.

  Each cell is a table and has the following fields: char (integer) The character number(convert to string using string.char) fg (integer) The foreground ANSI terminal color bg (integer) The background ANSI terminal color bold, dim, underline, blink, reverse, invisible (boolean) character attributes

• x, y = term:get_cursor() Gets the current cursor position.

• width, height = term:get_size() Gets the terminal size(columns, rows)

• term:set_size(width, height) Sets the terminal size to width, height(columns, rows)

Example

For a more complete example, see example_dump_screen.lua.

local tmt = require("tmt")
local term = tmt.new(80, 25)
term:write("Hello World!")
local screen = term:get_screen()
for _, cell in ipairs(screen.lines[1]) do
	io.write(string.char(cell.char))
end
io.write("\n")