summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/README.rst
blob: c6660f0af01956a18471933ab5038261b6250e9d (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
.. image:: smenu.gif

What is it?
===========
**smenu** is a selection filter just like ``sed`` is an editing filter.

This tool takes words from standard input or from a file and presents
them on the screen in different layouts in a scrolling window.
A cursor that you can easily move lets you select one or more of them.

Note that the screen is not previously cleared when the scrolling window
of **smenu** is displayed.

I tried to make its use as simple as possible. It supports the ``UTF-8``
encoding and should work on all terminals managed by the ``terminfo``
database.

Please use the included man page to learn more about this little program.

The wiki (https://github.com/p-gen/smenu/wiki) contains screenshots and
animations that detail some of the concepts and features of **smenu**.

How to build it?
================
**smenu** can be built on any system on which a working ``terminfo``
development platform is available. This includes every Unix and
Unix-like system I am aware of.

Please use the provided ``build.sh`` to build the executable. This
script accepts the same arguments as ``configure``, type ``build.sh
--help`` to see them.

The script ``autogen.sh`` is also provided if you need to generate a
new ``configure`` script from ``configure.ac`` and ``Makefile.am``. The
GNU **autotools** will need to be installed for this script to work.

How to install it?
==================
Once the build process has finished, a simple ``make install`` with the
appropriate privileges will do it

Some examples.
==============

Linux example.
--------------
This program should work on most Unix but if you are using Linux,
try to type the following line at a shell prompt (here: ``"$ "`` ):

::

  $ R=$(grep Vm /proc/$$/status \
        | smenu -n20 -W $':\t\n' -q -c -b -g -s /VmH)
  $ echo $R

Something like this should now be displayed with the program waiting
for commands: (numbers are mine, yours will be different)

::

  VmPeak¦    23840 kB
  VmSize¦    23836 kB
  VmLck ¦        0 kB
  VmHWM ¦     2936 kB
  VmRSS ¦     2936 kB
  VmData¦     1316 kB
  VmStk ¦      136 kB
  VmExe ¦       28 kB
  VmLib ¦     3956 kB
  VmPTE ¦       64 kB
  VmSwap¦        0 kB

A cursor should be under ``"VmHWM "``.

After having moved the cursor to ``"      136 kB"`` and ended the program
with ``<Enter>``, the shell variable R should contain: ``"      136 kB"``.

Unix example.
-------------
The following command, which is Unix brand agnostic, should give you a
scrolling window if you have more than 10 accounts on your Unix with a
UID lower than 100:

::

  $ R=$(awk -F: '$3 < 100 {print $1,$3,$4,$NF}' /etc/passwd \
        | smenu -n10 -c)
  $ echo $R

On mine (``LANG`` and ``LC_ALL`` set to ``POSIX``) it displays:

::

  at      25 25  /bin/bash      \
  sys     0  3   /usr/bin/ksh   +
  bin     1  1   /bin/bash      |
  daemon  2  2   /bin/bash      |
  ftp     40 49  /bin/bash      |
  games   12 100 /bin/bash      |
  lp      4  7   /bin/bash      |
  mail    8  12  /bin/false     |
  named   44 44  /bin/false     |
  ntp     74 108 /bin/false     v

Note the presence of a scrollbar.

Testing and reporting.
----------------------
The included testing system is relatively young, please be indulgent.

**IMPORTANT** the testing system has some dependencies, please read the
``test/README.rst`` before going further.

**WARNING** running all the tests by running ``./tests.sh`` in the
``tests`` directory will take some time (around 15 min for now).

**NOTE** on some systems like \*BSD some tests may fail. This can be
explained by differences in posix/libc/... implementations.  This can
notably occur when some specific regular expressions or uncommon ``UTF-8``
byte sequences are used.

If a test fails for unknown reason, then please send me its directory
name and the relevant ``.bad`` file.

If you are hit by a bug that no test covers, then you can create a new
test in the ``tests`` directory in an existing or new directory: read the
``tests/README.rst`` file, use an existing test as model, create an
``.in`` file and a ``.tst`` file and send them to me as well as the
produced files.