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Features requiring application changes

Multiline commands

Command input may span multiple lines for the commands whose names are listed in the parameter app.multiline_commands. These commands will be executed only after the user has entered a terminator. By default, the command terminator is ;; replacing or appending to the list app.terminators allows different terminators. A blank line is always considered a command terminator (cannot be overridden).

In multiline commands, output redirection characters like > and | are part of the command arguments unless they appear after the terminator.

Parsed statements

cmd2 passes arg to a do_ method (or default) as a Statement, a subclass of string that includes many attributes of the parsed input:

command

Name of the command called

args

The arguments to the command with output redirection or piping to shell commands removed

command_and_args

A string of just the command and the arguments, with output redirection or piping to shell commands removed

argv

A list of arguments a-la sys.argv, including the command as argv[0] and the subsequent arguments as additional items in the list. Quotes around arguments will be stripped as will any output redirection or piping portions of the command

raw

Full input exactly as typed.

terminator

Character used to end a multiline command

If Statement does not contain an attribute, querying for it will return None.

(Getting arg as a Statement is technically "free", in that it requires no application changes from the cmd standard, but there will be no result unless you change your application to use any of the additional attributes.)

Environment parameters

Your application can define user-settable parameters which your code can reference. First create a class attribute with the default value. Then update the settable dictionary with your setting name and a short description before you initialize the superclass. Here's an example, from examples/environment.py:

../examples/environment.py

If you want to be notified when a setting changes (as we do above), then define a method _onchange_{setting}(). This method will be called after the user changes a setting, and will receive both the old value and the new value.

(Cmd) set --long | grep sunny
sunny: False                # Is it sunny outside?
(Cmd) set --long | grep degrees
degrees_c: 22               # Temperature in Celsius
(Cmd) sunbathe
Too dim.
(Cmd) set degrees_c 41
degrees_c - was: 22
now: 41
(Cmd) set sunny
sunny: True
(Cmd) sunbathe
UV is bad for your skin.
(Cmd) set degrees_c 13
degrees_c - was: 41
now: 13
(Cmd) sunbathe
It's 13 C - are you a penguin?

Commands with flags

All do_ methods are responsible for interpreting the arguments passed to them. However, cmd2 lets a do_ methods accept Unix-style flags. It uses argparse to parse the flags, and they work the same way as for that module.

cmd2 defines a few decorators which change the behavior of how arguments get parsed for and passed to a do_ method. See the section decorators for more information.

poutput, pfeedback, perror, ppaged

Standard cmd applications produce their output with self.stdout.write('output') (or with print, but print decreases output flexibility). cmd2 applications can use self.poutput('output'), self.pfeedback('message'), self.perror('errmsg'), and self.ppaged('text') instead. These methods have these advantages:

  • Handle output redirection to file and/or pipe appropriately
  • More concise
    • .pfeedback() destination is controlled by quiet parameter.
  • Option to display long output using a pager via ppaged()

cmd2.cmd2.Cmd.poutput

cmd2.cmd2.Cmd.perror

cmd2.cmd2.Cmd.pfeedback

cmd2.cmd2.Cmd.ppaged

color

Text output can be colored by wrapping it in the colorize method.

cmd2.cmd2.Cmd.colorize

quiet

Controls whether self.pfeedback('message') output is suppressed; useful for non-essential feedback that the user may not always want to read. quiet is only relevant if app.pfeedback is sometimes used.

select

Presents numbered options to user, as bash select.

app.select is called from within a method (not by the user directly; it is app.select, not app.do_select).

cmd2.cmd2.Cmd.select

def do_eat(self, arg):
    sauce = self.select('sweet salty', 'Sauce? ')
    result = '{food} with {sauce} sauce, yum!'
    result = result.format(food=arg, sauce=sauce)
    self.stdout.write(result + '\n')
(Cmd) eat wheaties
    1. sweet
    2. salty
Sauce? 2
wheaties with salty sauce, yum!