Miscellaneous Features
Timer
Turn the timer setting on, and cmd2
will show the wall time it takes for each command to execute.
Exiting
Mention quit, and EOF handling built into cmd2
.
select
Presents numbered options to user, as bash select
.
app.select
is called from within a method (not by the user directly; it is app.select
, not app.do_select
).
cmd2.Cmd.select
Presents a numbered menu to the user. Modeled after the bash shell's SELECT. Returns the item chosen.
Argument opts
can be:
| a single string -> will be split into one-word options | a list of strings -> will be offered as options | a list of tuples -> interpreted as (value, text), so that the return value can differ from the text advertised to the user
Source code in cmd2/cmd2.py
def do_eat(self, arg):
sauce = self.select('sweet salty', 'Sauce? ')
result = '{food} with {sauce} sauce, yum!'
result = result.format(food=arg, sauce=sauce)
self.stdout.write(result + '\n')
Disabling Commands
cmd2
supports disabling commands during runtime. This is useful if certain commands should only be available when the application is in a specific state. When a command is disabled, it will not show up in the help menu or tab complete. If a user tries to run the command, a command-specific message supplied by the developer will be printed. The following functions support this feature.
-
- enable_command
- Enable an individual command
-
- enable_category
- Enable an entire category of commands
-
- disable_command
- Disable an individual command and set the message that will print when this command is run or help is called on it while disabled
-
- disable_category
- Disable an entire category of commands and set the message that will print when anything in this category is run or help is called on it while disabled
See the definitions of these functions for descriptions of their arguments.
See the do_enable_commands()
and do_disable_commands()
functions in the HelpCategories example for a demonstration.
Default to shell
Every cmd2
application can execute operating-system level (shell) commands with shell
or a !
shortcut:
(Cmd) shell which python
/usr/bin/python
(Cmd) !which python
/usr/bin/python
However, if the parameter default_to_shell
is True
, then every command will be attempted on the operating system. Only if that attempt fails (i.e., produces a nonzero return value) will the application's own default
method be called.
(Cmd) which python
/usr/bin/python
(Cmd) my dog has fleas
sh: my: not found
*** Unknown syntax: my dog has fleas