TTYIO Revised 13-May-84 TTYIO is a package containing a number of functions built on top of TTYIN that enable you to prompt a user for files, functions, reals, integers, dotted pairs, and atoms with defaults and flexible restriction handling. When using these functions in sequence, you may type responses ahead by including the responses to successive questions on the same line as the response to the current question. TTYIO also contains a "text" pointer facility, based on INTERLISP comment pointers, that enables you to store help messages on a file without storing them as strings in memory. Interaction Functions: (ASKFLE MODE PROMPT HELP CONFIRMFLG DEFAULT NULFLG FILE) ASKFLE asks for a filename using TTYINC with PROMPT and HELP. MODE is either INPUT or OUTPUT (defaults to INPUT). CONFIRMFLG is T if user confirmation is required. DEFAULT is returned if <cr> is entered as the response. NULFLG is T if a null response is permitted. If FILE is given, then it is taken as the response without user interaction. However, it is still checked for validity (and user interaction will occur if it is not valid). (ASKFN PROMPT DEFAULT HELP SPLST FN CONFIRMFLG NULFLG) ASKFN asks for a function name or LAMBDA expression using TTYINC with PROMPT and HELP. CONFIRMFLG is T if user confirmation is required. DEFAULT is returned if <cr> is entered as the response. NULFLG is T if a null response is permitted. SPLST (if given) is a list of suggested function names. The list is used strictly for <esc> completion. The response does not have to be a member of the list. If FN is given, then it is taken as the response without user interaction. However, it is still checked for validity (and user interaction will occur if FN is not a valid function). (ASKINT PROMPT DEFAULT HELP LOWERBOUND UPPERBOUND INTEGER CONFIRMFLG NULFLG) ASKINT asks for an integer using TTYINC with PROMPT and HELP. CONFIRMFLG is T if user confirmation is required. DEFAULT is returned if <cr> is entered as the response. NULFLG is T if a null response is permitted. LOWERBOUND and UPPERBOUND are the lower and upper bounds on acceptable answers. The response must be greater than or equal to the lower bound and less than or equal to the upper bound. Both bounds may be defaulted to NIL. If INTEGER is given, then it is taken as the response without user interaction. However, it is still checked for validity (and user interaction will occur if it fails to meet the requirements). (ASKITEM RESTRICTION PROMPT HELP CONFIRMFLG DEFAULT NULFLG ITEM) ASKITEM asks for an item using TTYINC with PROMPT and HELP. RESTRICTION is either a list of allowable responses or a function that returns the response if it is valid and NIL otherwise. CONFIRMFLG is T if user confirmation is required. DEFAULT is returned if <cr> is entered as the response. NULFLG is T if a null response is permitted. If ITEM is given, then it is taken as the response without user interaction. However, it is still checked for validity (and user interaction will occur if it fails to meet the requirements). If a restriction list is provided and the first element of the list is "*" then new items are allowed. Otherwise, the response must be a member of the restriction list. (ASKITEMS RESTRICTION PROMPT HELP CONFIRMFLG ITEMS) ASKITEMS asks for a list of items using TTYINC with PROMPT and HELP. RESTRICTION is either a list of allowable responses or a function that returns the response if it is valid and NIL otherwise. CONFIRMFLG is T if user confirmation is required. If ITEMS is given, then it is taken as the response without user interaction. However, it is still checked for validity (and user interaction will occur if it fails to meet the requirements). If a restriction list is provided and the first element of the list is "*" then new items are also allowed. Otherwise, the response must be a member of the restriction list. Once the list of items has been entered, ASKITEM is called to check the validity of each item. (ASKPAIR RESTRICTION PROMPT HELP CONFIRMFLG DEFAULT NULFLG ITEM) ASKPAIR asks for a dotted pair using TTYINC with PROMPT and HELP. RESTRICTION is either a list of allowable responses or a function that returns the response if it is valid and NIL otherwise. CONFIRMFLG is T if user confirmation is required. DEFAULT is returned if <cr> is entered as the response. NULFLG is T if a null response is permitted. If ITEM is given, then it is taken as the response without user interaction. However, it is still checked for validity (and user interaction will occur if it fails to meet the requirements). If a restriction list is provided and the first element of the list is "*" then new items are also allowed. Otherwise, the response must be a member of the restriction list. If the value is expected as (A . B), the user should type A B. If a default is supplied, the user can type A alone, and the default B will be supplied. (ASKRL PROMPT DEFAULT HELP LOWERBOUND UPPERBOUND REAL CONFIRMFLG NULFLG) ASKRL asks for a floating point number using TTYIN with PROMPT and HELP. CONFIRMFLG is T if user confirmation is required. DEFAULT is returned if <cr> is entered as the response. NULFLG is T if a null response is permitted. LOWERBOUND and UPPERBOUND are the lower and upper bounds on acceptable answers. The response must be greater than or equal to the lower bound and less than or equal to the upper bound. Both bounds may be defaulted to NIL. If REAL is given, then it is taken as the response without user interaction. However, it is still checked for validity (and user interaction will occur if it fails to meet the requirements). (ASKYN PROMPT DEFAULT HELP RESPONSE) ASKYN asks for a Yes/No answer using TTYIN with PROMPT and HELP. DEFAULT is returned if <cr> is the response (any non-NIL default is taken as Yes). If RESPONSE is given, then it is taken as the response without user interaction. However, it is still checked for validity (and user interaction will occur if it fails to meet the requirements). ASKYN returns T for Yes and NIL for No. (TTYINC PROMPT SPLST HELP OPTIONS ECHOTOFILE TABS UNREADBUF RDTBL NOSTOREFLG) TTYINC is used in conjunction with TTYIN to allow the user to type a number of commands ahead to a prompt. It is typically used with the TTYIN modes COMMAND and STRING. If the global variable TTYIN-COMMAND-LINE is non-NIL upon entry then it is concatenated with UNREADBUF and a line terminator. TTYIN is then called. CDR of the line returned by TTYIN is stored back in TTYIN-COMMAND-LINE unless NOSTOREFLG is non-NIL. Text Pointer Functions: Text pointers are variations on comment pointers. A text pointer is an s-expression of the form (; "text string"). ";" is defined as a read macro. When the global variable TTYIO-TXT-FLG is NIL, only pointers are loaded. When T, the full text is loaded. Upon printing to the primary output file, the leading parenthesis, semi-colon, and trailing parenthesis are stripped off. GET; is a user macro similar to GETCOMMENT. Regardless of the TTYIO-TXT-FLG setting, it loads the actual text. (DISPLAYHELP KEY) DISPLAYHELP copies the help message indexed by KEY to the primary output file. KEY can either be a text pointer (with TTYIO-TXT-FLG T or NIL) or a string or an atom (T is ignored). DISPLAYHELP returns NIL if nothing was printed; T if the entry was found, or user typed ↑O. The function SPRINTT is advised to ensure that DISPLAYHELP is called from TTYIN in response to ? or HELP. Simple Output Functions: The following functions were written by Bill VanMelle for the MYCIN environment. (WRITE . N) WRITE takes an arbitrary number of arguments, each of which is PRIN1ed to the primary output file, followed by EOL. If an argument is a list, it is MAPRINTed; i.e., the outer parentheses will not appear. (WRITE1 . N) WRITE without the final EOL. (WRITEARG X FILE) WRITEARG PRIN1's X to FILE if it is not a list. Otherwise it uses MAPRINT. If X is not a list, WRITEARG PRIN1's it to FILE, otherwise MAPRINT's it, so that the outer parentheses will not appear. (TTYOUT . N) WRITE to the tty display stream. (TTYOUT1 . N) TTYOUT without the final EOL. Reid Smith SDR