Don't print char when using getch() ncurses - input

I need to get a char with ncurses, but when I get the char, I don't want it printed to the screen. Is there a way to do this?

Assuming you're using C, you can use noecho();.
The following is a relevant excerpt from the manual pages.
The echo and noecho routines control whether characters typed by the user are echoed by getch as they are typed. Echoing by the tty driver is always disabled, but initially getch is in echo mode, so characters typed are echoed. Authors of most interactive programs prefer to do their own echoing in a controlled area of the screen, or not to echo at all, so they disable echoing by calling noecho.

Related

Show whole lines while piping live logs to fzf

I'm trying to pipe logs to fzf so that I'll be able to filter them live, as my program spits a lot of logs out.
However, I've noticed the long lines get truncated and I have no way to show the whole lines, except to press ENTER, at which point the line will be displayed in it's entirety but the logs will be deleted from the screen and the program will crash with the error failed printing to stdout: Broken pipe (os error 32)'
It seems fzf supports this feature, as it has a --no-hscroll: Disable horizontal scroll flag, implying horizontal scroll is available by default, but arrow keys don't work, at least not alone or with the usual modifiers.
I've also tried using less -S for this, but doesn't work on live logs as it doesn't resume following after the first interrupt and F command.
As an alternative, I've noticed fzf supports a preview window feature, it would be neat to have the whole line display there so that the logs are still visible and scrolling while following the lines.
I could append logs to a file and try working from there, but is that necessary? Or can these tools also work properly on live stdout logs?

How to get Beeline command line interface recognize up arrow key press

When working on Hive queries through Beeline command line interface, I can't get the upper arrow (and other arrows, mouse wheel up/down, page up/down) to work. It simply shows
0: jdbc:hive2://remoteserver:10000> ^[[A^[[B^[[D^[[C^[[B^[[B^[[B^[[B^[[B^[[B^[[B^[[B^[[B^[[B^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A^[[A
If I exit and back to my bash shell CLI, the upper arrow (and other key press functions) works fine.
It becomes annoying as I need to retype historic queries all the time. Is there a way to solve this issue?
Solved: for those in similar situations, here is my work-around. The server seems to have readline library installed, but somehow my account was not set up to use readline properly. Thus I installed https://github.com/hanslub42/rlwrap/blob/master/INSTALL and use "rlwrap -a beeline" instead.

Escape flash load of Cisco Autonomous AP from Expect script

I am trying to use a expect script to stop the loading of the flash on a Cisco Autonomous AP so that I can get into the rommon.
Loading "flash:/ap3g1-k9w7-mx.124-25d.JA/ap3g1-k9w7-mx.124-25d.JA"...###
If you are sitting a keyboard pressing the escape key at this point will stop the process and give you the option to abort and put you to a rommon prompt.
With the expect script I have tried:
Sending an escape
send "\x1B"
this is sending the hex value for Esc. This is ignored and the process continues. However this works on a WLC device so I know the value is valid.
Sending a break
send "\x1D"
expect "telnet>"
send "send Break\r"
this is sending the hex value for Ctrl+] which is the escape character for but it puts it to telnet> prompt. Sending the break comes back from the telnet and continues loading the flash. On another device that stops the load and puts the device in rommon.
I have also tried the hex for the F1 key and for an arrow key because those work from the keyboard also.
The send "\x1B" will work on an AP as long as the device is set up to allow password recovery.

Arrow keys stop working when using less in a gnu screen session

Sometimes when I am using less within a screen tab, the arrow keys display ^[OA, ^[OB, ^[OC, and ^[OD instead of doing what I want them to do. Is there something I can do to fix this and gain control of less again?
enter !reset at the less prompt
I have found that reset from within screen does not solve the problem sometimes, as it's the outer client/shell whose state is actually confused and screen captures the control characters from reset and prevents them from reaching the outer client. In this situation, I have to detach my session (Ctrl+a, d), run reset, then attach to the session again (screen -r).
If it happens from time to time, it seems, that some application (e.g. cat or less a binary file) shatters your console by sending it control characters. You need to run reset command from command line to recover.
Otherwise you have to trick your terminal application. I suggest you to use CryptoTerm which allows you to define custom key mappings.
Another thing to check is your TERM variable. In my case I ssh into a Linux box and run less inside screen - the TERM variable was set to 'screen' - which breaks arrow keys. It works perfectly if I run less this way:
TERM=xterm less <file>

multi tabbed SSH client using screen

Is there an SSH client that can present a client side GUI interface to the screen* program?
I'm thinking of an SSH program that would hook in with screen's session handling and map client side actions (clicking on a tab, ctrl-tab, scrolling, possibly even allowing several tabs to be seen at the same time) to whatever it takes to make screen at the other end do it's thing.
* The screen program that allow multiple virtual consoles under a single terminal session, for example you can run several apps under a single SSH connection and switch between them as well as other cool things.
An interesting idea, and quite possible (vim7's tabs show as clicky GUI tabs in gnome-terminal), but I don't see the benefit of doing this..
Using the follow ~/.screenrc shows "graphical" tabs:
startup_message off
vbell off
hardstatus alwayslastline
hardstatus string '%{gk}[ %{G}%H %{g}][%= %{wk}%?%-Lw%?%{=b kR}(%{W}%n*%f %t%?(%u)%?%{=b kR})%{= kw}%?%+Lw%?%?%= %{g}]%{=y C}[%d/%m %c]%{W}'
..which look like the following (after renaming the tabs using ctrl+a,a:
x http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/9401/picture4myi.png
You can scroll around in a screen session using "copy mode", by doing ctrl+a,[ and using the cursor keys (press Esc or ctrl+c to exit it)
You can also attach to the same screen session multiple times using the screen -x flag (rather than -r), so you could use any tabbed terminal emulator, and open one tab for each screen-window.
If you really did want to start implementing this - one option would be to look into modifying gnome-terminal, to copy the behaviour with vim's tabs for screen. Or, write your own screen client - you don't need to do anything as fragile sounding as scraping the terminal - there's a FIFO file in (usually) /tmp/uscreens/S-$USER/$PID.sessionname which I think is how screen communicates, and remember screen is open-source!
Interesting idea. I use screen everyday both on my local machine and for SSH sessions. I think your biggest problem is that I suspect most screen users are commandline junkies like me who just won't see the benefit of making a gui for tabs. In fact, I have all my terminals in one gnome-terminal window under different tabs, and having screen's text-based tabs is a nice way not to confuse the two.
I suspect it could be done, but you'd be writing a specialised terminal emulator which analyses screen's output (custom .screenrc) and retrofits the gui.
A lot of work for minimal gain.
ctrl+a shift+'
.. gui front-end to screen? what are you talking about??
also, because my rep is so low, and i cant comment, id like to LOL # geoffc for his comment in the question
I've never seen one, but the following may help you. Add to your .screenrc
To show a row of "tabs" on the bottom
caption always "%{.bW}%-Lw%{.rW}%n %t%{-}%+Lw %=%{..G} %{..Y} %m/%d"
To show the current program as the screen name [assuming you're using bash and your prompt ends with "$ " by default; others shells are the exact same idea]
shelltitle "$ |sh"