vt100 emulator

vt100-emulator is a headless vt100 emulator, a bit like any terminal you may use daily (like urxvt, xterm, ...) but those you're using are NOT headless, they have a graphical interface to interact with you, human). Here, vt100-emulator is only the underlying a C and Python API to an actual emulator, so you can do everything you want with it, like interfacing over TCP, HTTP, automatically testing your implementation malloc against top while running top in the headless terminal, whatever pleases you.

For copyright information, please see the file LICENSE in this directory or in the files of the source tree.

INSTALL

Python module

pip install hl-vt100

Python module from source

The simpliest way is just to run pip install . from within the repo, but if you want build artifacts, you can build one in an isolated environment using:

pip install build
python -m build

Or just create an sdist the quick way: n python setup.py sdist

In both case it will provide a build artifact in the dist/ directory that you can also pip install.

Usage using the Python wrapper (same methods in C)

import hl_vt100


def dump(vt100):
    print("╭" + "─" * vt100.width + "╮")
    for line in vt100.getlines():
        print(f"│{line:{vt100.width}}│")
    print("╰" + "─" * vt100.width + "╯")


def main():
    vt100 = hl_vt100.vt100_headless()
    vt100.changed_callback = lambda: dump(vt100)
    vt100.fork('top', ['top'])
    vt100.main_loop()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Usage using the C library

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include "hl_vt100.h"


void changed(struct vt100_headless *vt100)
{
    const char **lines;

    lines = vt100_headless_getlines(vt100);
    for (unsigned int y = 0; y < vt100->term->height; ++y)
    {
        write(1, "|", 1);
        write(1, lines[y], vt100->term->width);
        write(1, "|\n", 2);
    }
    write(1, "\n", 1);
}

int main(int ac, char **av)
{
    struct vt100_headless *vt100;
    char *argv[] = {"top", NULL};

    vt100 = new_vt100_headless();
    vt100_headless_fork(vt100, argv[0], argv);
    vt100->changed = changed;
    vt100_headless_main_loop(vt100);
    return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

Code overview

lw_terminal_parser, lw_terminal_vt100, and hl_vt100 are three modules used to emulate a vt100 terminal:

                                  -------------
                                  |           |
                                  | Your Code |
                                  |           |
                                  -------------
                                    |      ^
 vt100 = vt100_headless_init()      |      |
 vt100->changed = changed;          |      | hl_vt100 raises 'changed'
 vt100_headless_fork(vt100, ...     |      | when the screen has changed.
                                    |      | You get the content of the screen
                                    |      | calling vt100_headless_getlines.
                                    V      |
                                  -------------              -------------
 Read from PTY master and write | |           |     PTY      |           |
 to lw_terminal_vt100_read_str  | |  hl_vt100 |<------------>|  Program  |
                                V |           |Master   Slave|           |
                                  -------------              -------------
                                   |        |^ hl_vt100 gets lw_terminal_vt100's
                                   |        || lines by calling
                                   |        || lw_terminal_vt100_getlines
                                   |        ||
                                   |        ||
                                   V        V|
                              ----------------------
 Got data from              | |                    | Recieve data from callbacks
 lw_terminal_vt100_read_str | | lw_terminal_vt100  | And store an in-memory
 give it to                 | |                    | state of the vt100 terminal
 lw_terminal_parser_read_strV ----------------------
                                 |              ^
                                 |              |
                                 |              |
                                 |              |
                                 |              |
                                 |              | Callbacks
                                 |              |
                                 |              |
                                 |              |
                                 |              |
                                 |              |
                                 V              |
                              ----------------------
 Got data from                |                    |
 lw_terminal_pasrser_read_str | lw_terminal_parser |
 parses, and call callbacks   |                    |
                              ----------------------

lw_terminal_parser

lw_terminal_parser parses terminal escape sequences, calling callbacks when a sequence is sucessfully parsed, read example/parse.c.

Provides:

• struct lw_terminal *lw_terminal_parser_init(void);
• void lw_terminal_parser_destroy(struct lw_terminal* this);
• void lw_terminal_parser_default_unimplemented(struct lw_terminal* this, char *seq, char chr);
• void lw_terminal_parser_read(struct lw_terminal *this, char c);
• void lw_terminal_parser_read_str(struct lw_terminal *this, char *c);

lw_terminal_vt100

Hooks into a lw_terminal_parser and keep an in-memory state of the screen of a vt100.

Provides:

• struct lw_terminal_vt100 *lw_terminal_vt100_init(void *user_data, void (*unimplemented)(struct lw_terminal* term_emul, char *seq, char chr));
• char lw_terminal_vt100_get(struct lw_terminal_vt100 *vt100, unsigned int x, unsigned int y);
• const char **lw_terminal_vt100_getlines(struct lw_terminal_vt100 *vt100);
• void lw_terminal_vt100_destroy(struct lw_terminal_vt100 *this);
• void lw_terminal_vt100_read_str(struct lw_terminal_vt100 *this, char *buffer);

hl_vt100

Forks a program, plug its io to a pseudo terminal and emulate a vt100 using lw_terminal_vt100.

Provides:

• void vt100_headless_fork(struct vt100_headless *this, const char *progname, char *const argv[]);
• struct vt100_headless *vt100_headless_init(void);
• const char **vt100_headless_getlines(struct vt100_headless *this);