NAME

Term::Prompt - Perl extension for prompting a user for information

SYNOPSIS

    use Term::Prompt;

DESCRIPTION

 This perl routine will take a prompt, a default response and a list of
 possible responses and deal with the user interface, (and the user!),
 by displaying the prompt, showing the default, and checking to be sure
 that the response is one of the legal choices.
 --Mark Henderson


 Derived from im_prompt2.pl, from anlpasswd (see
 ftp://info.mcs.anl.gov/pub/systems/), with permission. Revisions for Perl 5,
 addition of alternative help text presentation, addition of floating point
 type, addition of regular expression type, addition of yes/no type, and line
 wrapping by E. Allen Smith.

 Additional "types" that could be added would be a phone type,
 a social security type, a generic numeric pattern type...

 The usage is the following:
 x = don't care, a = alpha-only, n = numeric-only, i = ignore case
 c = case sensitive, r = ranged by the low and high values
 f = floating-point, y = yes/no, e = regular expression - Added by Allen

 $result = &prompt("x", "text prompt", "help prompt", "default" );

 $result = &prompt("a", "text prompt", "help prompt", "default" );

 $result = &prompt("n", "text prompt", "help prompt", "default" );

 The result will be a positive integer or 0.

 $result = &prompt("i", "text prompt", "help prompt", "default",
                         "legal_options-ignore-case-list");

 $result = &prompt("c", "text prompt", "help prompt", "default",
                         "legal_options-case-sensitive-list");

 $result = &prompt("r", "text prompt", "help prompt", "default",
                       "low", "high");

 $result = &prompt("f", "text prompt", "help prompt", "default" );

 The result will be a floating-point number.

 $result = &prompt("y", "text prompt", "help prompt", "default")

 The result will be 1 for y, 0 for n. A default not starting with y or n
 (or the uc versions of these) will be treated as y for positive, n for
 negative.

 $result = &prompt("e", "text prompt", "help prompt", "default",
                       "regular expression");

 The regular expression for the last has ^ and $ surrounding it automatically;
 just put in .* before or after if you need to free it up before or
 after. - Allen

 What, you might ask, is the difference between a "text prompt" and a
 "help prompt"?  Think about the case where the "legal_options" look 
 something like: "1-1000".  Now consider what happens when you tell someone
 that "0" is not between 1-1000 and that the possible choices are:  :)
 1 2 3 4 5 .....
 This is what the "help prompt" is for.

 It will work off of unique parts of "legal_options".

 Changed by Allen - it will be treated as a true "help prompt" if you
 capitalize the type of prompt, and otherwise will be treated as a list of
 options. Capitalizing the type of prompt will also mean that a return may be
 accepted as a response, even if there is no default; whether it actually is
 will depend on the type of prompt.

AUTHOR

Mark Henderson (henderson@mcs.anl.gov or systems@mcs.anl.gov) Primary contact author: Allen Smith (easmith@beatrice.rutgers.edu)

SEE ALSO

perl(1).