[Savannah-hackers] submission of Javapult Console Interface Library - savannah.nongnu.org

[scheid]

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Julian Scheid <address@hidden> described the package as follows:
License: lgpl
Other License: 
Package: Javapult Console Interface Library
System name: javapult
Type: non-GNU

Description:
A portable C library for use with the Java platform (1.2 upwards) which enables 
development of interactive console applications, as opposed to non-interactive 
command line applications, with full functionality. A Java wrapper provides 
platform independence for the developer.

The Java platform provides poor support for interactive console applications:
- Echo is always on. This means it\'s impossible to design a safe password 
entry facility, for instance.
- Lines are always buffered, so input characters become only available after 
the user presses return. This means you cannot design a completion facility, 
for example.
- Signals always pass through to the VM. This means any interactive application 
might be accidentally cancelled by the user pressing Ctrl+C. It also means an 
application cannot respond to individual signals.

This project addresses all of these issues by providing a Java native interface 
to selected OS functions, like termios(3) and localeconv(3), in a 
platform-independent manner. There are native implementations for GNU/Linux and 
Win32 available, but it should be easy to port to other systems.

The library also provides abstractions for relocating the cursor, output of 
colored text, and screen clearing, as well as an improved interface to the 
standard file descriptors (stdin, stdout and stderr) which, among other 
benefits, use the same character encoding as the underlying console.

It is intended as a free, light-weight alternative to projects like JCurses and 
Javacurses.

It does not exist yet but I\'m working on it. Chances are that you can already 
find a pre-release at http://www.sektor37.de/jpult/jpult.tar.gz


Other Software Required:
The library is standard 1.2 Java and relies only on classes in the java.lang, 
java.util and java.io packages. It should be perfectly usable with any VM 
offering basic 1.2 support. Native code compiles with gcc. No further 
dependencies.


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