Cursor control question - ncurses and alternatives

["Dr. Adrian Wrigley" <amtw@linuxchip.demon.co.uk.uk.uk>]

Hi!

This should be a fairly simple Ada problem to solve...

I'm trying to build a small, text-based, real-time application,
to run in an xterm under Linux.

I want the user to be prompted to type in a command with a
prompt which shows the time, along with some other dynamic
information.

As the user types in a command, the prompt should continue
updating, until return is pressed.  Then the updating stops,
an action is performed, and the prompt appears on another line.

What Ada library is likely to be easiest to use for cursor
control?  I hear there is an ncurses binding, but this seems
to have hundreds of calls.

At the most basic level, I want to move the cursor to the start
of the line, update the prompt, and move the cursor back to
where it was.  How can I do this?

I have some test code, shown below, to illustrate the problem.
Currently, the cursor moves to the end of the prompt
spontaneously, when it should be at the end of the user's command.
I don't want to take over the xterm with a "full-screen" application,
I just want to enter a series of commands in a scrolling terminal.

Is this a job for ncurses?  What function is needed?
Or is there a better way?

Thanks for your suggestions!
--
Adrian


with Text_IO;
with Ada.Characters.Latin_1;

procedure TimDat is

   Count : Integer := 1000;
   function A return Integer is
   begin
      Count := Count + 1;
      return Count;
   end A;

   Message : String := "Hello";
   CR : constant Character := Ada.Characters.Latin_1.CR;

   task ShowClock;

   task body ShowClock is
   begin
      loop
         declare
            S : String := Integer'Image (A);
         begin
            Text_IO.Put (CR & S & " - " & Message & " > ");
         end;
         delay 1.0;
      end loop;
   end ShowClock;

begin

   loop
      declare
         Command : String := Text_IO.Get_Line (Text_IO.Standard_Input);
      begin
         Text_IO.Put_Line ("Command was """ & Command & """");
      end;
   end loop;

end TimDat;
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