Check-in [9f1cc3aa4e]

	Author:         Donal K. Fellows <[email protected]>
	Created:        17-Oct-2003
	Tcl-Branch:     tip-160
-----

# Abstract

Terminals and other kinds of serial lines have other capabilities and
requirements that are not currently controllable using Tcl.  This TIP
adds new options to **fconfigure** to allow these advanced
capabilities to be supported within Tcl in a straight-forward way.

# Serial Line Discard Control

Serial lines are much slower devices than virtually anything else on a
................................................................................

This option will be supported on all platforms where the underlying
serial API is sufficiently capable.  Where it is not supported, the
option will not be defined on serial channels.

# Echo and Cooking Control

Terminals have a number of modes of operation.  Two of the most useful
things that can be set relate to echoing and cooking.


_Echoing_ is fairly simple to understand.  If a terminal has echoing
turned on, every character read is written to the terminal
automatically without any action from the program reading from the
terminal.  Most of the time this is a good thing as people want to
see what they have typed, but sometimes it is not so good.  Examples
include where someone is typing in a password \(when they also want
................................................................................
system- and configuration-dependant, since users can use the `stty`
program to configure their terminals prior to calling Tcl.

If the user changes the **-inputmode**, the mode that was present when the
channel was opened will be restored when Tcl closes the channel, just as if
the **reset** option is used.









# Platform Portability

This TIP does not guarantee support for any of these options on non-POSIX
platforms (specifically including Windows), but it does authorize the support
as documented on any platform where it is practical to do so.







# Copyright

This document has been placed in the public domain.

	Author:         Donal K. Fellows <[email protected]>
	Created:        17-Oct-2003
	Tcl-Branch:     tip-160
-----

# Abstract

Terminals, consoles and other kinds of serial lines have other capabilities and
requirements that are not currently controllable using Tcl.  This TIP
adds new options to **fconfigure** to allow these advanced
capabilities to be supported within Tcl in a straight-forward way.

# Serial Line Discard Control

Serial lines are much slower devices than virtually anything else on a
................................................................................

This option will be supported on all platforms where the underlying
serial API is sufficiently capable.  Where it is not supported, the
option will not be defined on serial channels.

# Echo and Cooking Control

Terminals (on Unix) and consoles (on Windows) have a number of modes of
operation.  Two of the most useful things that can be set relate to echoing
and cooking.

_Echoing_ is fairly simple to understand.  If a terminal has echoing
turned on, every character read is written to the terminal
automatically without any action from the program reading from the
terminal.  Most of the time this is a good thing as people want to
see what they have typed, but sometimes it is not so good.  Examples
include where someone is typing in a password \(when they also want
................................................................................
system- and configuration-dependant, since users can use the `stty`
program to configure their terminals prior to calling Tcl.

If the user changes the **-inputmode**, the mode that was present when the
channel was opened will be restored when Tcl closes the channel, just as if
the **reset** option is used.

# Terminal Size

It is common for terminals to be able to be of variable size. To accommodate
this, terminals (on Unix) and consoles (on Windows) will gain a read-only
**fconfigure** option, **-winsize**, that when read will return a two element
list with the current width (first element) and height (second element) of the
terminal/console.

# Platform Portability




On Unix, terminals cover both serial lines and consoles, and so gain all
options.

On Windows, serial lines and consoles are separate channel types, so
**-closemode** is only supported on serial lines, and **-inputmode** and
**-winsize** are only supported on consoles.

# Copyright

This document has been placed in the public domain.