Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!leah!rpi!pawl.rpi.edu!deven
From: deven@pawl.rpi.edu (Deven Corzine)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.news
Subject: Re: Sun Terminal & Executive Prompt.
Message-ID: <DEVEN.89Feb20221343@daniel.pawl.rpi.edu>
Date: 21 Feb 89 03:13:43 GMT
References: <21145.8902131122@isgcl.cs.reading.ac.uk>
Sender: usenet@rpi.edu
Organization: RPI Public Access Workstation Lab, Troy, NY
Lines: 65
In-reply-to: Anthony.D.Worrall@reading.ac.UK's message of 13 Feb 89 20:44:19 GMT


In article <21145.8902131122@isgcl.cs.reading.ac.uk> Anthony.D.Worrall@reading.ac.UK writes:
> Is it possible to set a prompt in the psh executive mode? Laser writers
>use a prompt and it makes things so much more user friendly.

Yes, indeed.  This is one of the many changes I have in my user.ps.
There is a slight bug in the input handling that will cause problems
if you try to type a literal string with a newline in it. In other
words:

PS> (this is
PS> a string)

will not work correctly.  (it will put (this is) on the stack and try
to execute "a", "string", and ")"...)  Aside from that, there is no
limit to input line length.  Here is the relevant code from my user.ps:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
systemdict /prompt {(PS> ) print flush} put

systemdict /executive { % - => - (Execute current file)
   countdictstack 1 eq {100 dict begin} if % make sure there is a userdict
   (Welcome to NeWS Version ) print version print (\n) print
   /execfile currentfile dup null eq {pop (%stdin) (r) file} if def
   {
      {
         execfile status not { quit } if
         {
            {
               prompt
               ()
               {
                  execfile 256 string readline pop
                  dup length 256 eq not {append exit} if
                  append
               } loop % get a line of input, without size restrictions
               cvx exec } loop
         } stopped pop
         execfile status not { quit } if
         ExecutiveErrorHandler
      } loop
   } stopped { quit } if
} put
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

As in the Adobe implementation, you can change the prompt globally with:

systemdict /prompt {(NeWS> ) print flush} put

to change the default prompt to "NeWS> " or you could use:

/prompt {(NeWS> ) print flush} def

to change it locally, for a single psh.  The whole setup works rather
nicely.  I gave this change along with some others to gregm@sun.com a
while back; maybe it will make it into a later release.  I have yet to
get around to fixing the string problem, but aside from that, it seems
ok.  Try it, you'll like it.  :-)

Deven
--
------- shadow@pawl.rpi.edu ------- Deven Thomas Corzine ---------------------
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