another text_io

another text_io

[Jan]

Hi,

we all know that the standard package Text_IO doesn't have a good text
mode support, so here is my question:

does someone know where to find a substitute for it, which would allow
me to:

- place the cursor wherever I want (like gotoxy in Pascal)
- change the foreground and background color
- hide the cursor
- change text mode (at least 80x25 and 80x50)

Thanks,

Re: another text_io

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <3e05aee0.3155187@news.freenet.de>, see@messagebody.com (Jan) writes:

> we all know that the standard package Text_IO doesn't have a good text
> mode support, so here is my question:
> 
> does someone know where to find a substitute for it, which would allow
> me to:
> 
> - place the cursor wherever I want (like gotoxy in Pascal)

That sounds like some vendor-specific add-on rather than Standard Pascal.

> - change the foreground and background color
> - hide the cursor
> - change text mode (at least 80x25 and 80x50)

I would call that "ANSI terminal support" rather than text.
Informally "text" support has been called (in another context)
the "glass teletype".

Someone already answered for Windows.
On VMS one would obviously call SMG.

Unless you are dealing with real terminals...

A portable package is probably not possible, since it depends on
the characteristics of the terminal emulator and the vast majority
of those do not adequately emulate the relevant hardware. For the
terminal emulator that ships with Microsoft Windows, the lack of
correspondence to the hardware is legendary.

Re: another text_io

[Michal Nowak]

On 2002-12-22 at 12:24 see@messagebody.com wrote:

>Hi,
>
>we all know that the standard package Text_IO doesn't have a good text
>mode support, so here is my question:
>
>does someone know where to find a substitute for it, which would allow
>me to:
>
>- place the cursor wherever I want (like gotoxy in Pascal)
>- change the foreground and background color
>- hide the cursor
>- change text mode (at least 80x25 and 80x50)

If you are on Win, Jerry van Dijk's packge is what you are looking
for:
http://users.ncrvnet.nl/gmvdijk/nt_con03.zip

Under Linux you may look at AdaCurses:
http://www.gnuada.org/linux/rpms/3.13p/glibc2.1/RPMS/i386/AdaCurses-5.2-2.i3
86.rpm
http://www.gnuada.org/linux/rpms/3.13p/glibc2.1/RPMS/i386/AdaCurses-runtime-
5.2-2.i386.rpm
http://www.gnuada.org/linux/rpms/3.13p/glibc2.1/SRPMS/AdaCurses-5.2-2.src.rp
m
or
TextTools:
http://www.vaxxine.com/pegasoft/tt.html

- Michal

-- -----------------------------------------------------------------
-- * ___  *     _'  '   *    `        *   `     *      '      .
--  / _ \  ' * | |    *   *      *                           ~*~
-- | |_| |  ___| | * _____    `      *  `  *       *    `   i/:\i
-- |  _ *| | __  |  | __' |   *                            i/`:'\i
-- |_| |_| |____*|_ |_____|_  Christmas with Ada:  `      i/`':`'\i
--   *      '       http://www.autopen.com/OTANBAUM.shtml '^^^I^^^'
-- -----------------------------------------------------------------

Re: another text_io

[Jan]

On Sun, 22 Dec 2002 14:11:35 +0100, Michal Nowak <vinnie@inetia.pl>
wrote:


>If you are on Win, Jerry van Dijk's packge is what you are looking
>for:
>http://users.ncrvnet.nl/gmvdijk/nt_con03.zip

Oh, I forgot to mention my OS. Yes, it's Win. I will take a look,
thanks.

Re: another text_io

[Jan]

On 22 Dec 2002 06:40:23 -0600, Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen)
wrote:


>> - place the cursor wherever I want (like gotoxy in Pascal)
>
>That sounds like some vendor-specific add-on rather than Standard Pascal.

Well, that's implemented in Borland/Turbo Pascal, Free Pascal, GNU
Pascal, ...

>of those do not adequately emulate the relevant hardware. For the
>terminal emulator that ships with Microsoft Windows, the lack of
>correspondence to the hardware is legendary.

That's true, I have noticed that the terminal in Win2000 is _very_
slow (especially keyboard responses), and is even not fully compatible
with DOS (just to say some examples: blinking text is not supported
and the character (ascii) table is different).

Re: another text_io

[Gautier]

> >> - place the cursor wherever I want (like gotoxy in Pascal)
> >
> >That sounds like some vendor-specific add-on rather than Standard Pascal.

Jan:
 
> Well, that's implemented in Borland/Turbo Pascal, Free Pascal, GNU
> Pascal, ...

More precisely, in Borland's Crt unit that is imitated for compatibility
(good idea) by Free and GNU Pascals. But what about DEC (no, Compaq, no, HP)
Pascal ? Or the "pc" you find on a Unix station ?...
And there is not everywhere the good old 80x25 text area - e.g. as you
observed, the NT/2K console which is rather a succession of lines.

Standard in Pascal are Read, Write, Eof, Reset, etc. for which you find
equivalents in Ada.Text_IO.
________________________________________________________
Gautier  --  http://www.mysunrise.ch/users/gdm/gsoft.htm

NB: For a direct answer, e-mail address on the Web site!