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<head>
<title>Manual Page</title>
</head>
<body>
<pre>
<a href="pca_lookup_file.html"><b>pca_lookup_file</b></a> <a href="pca_lookup_file.html"><b>pca_lookup_file</b></a>
</pre><h2>NAME</h2><pre>
pca_lookup_file, del_PathCache, del_PcaPathConf, new_PathCache,
new_PcaPathConf, pca_last_error, pca_path_completions, pca_scan_path,
pca_set_check_fn, ppc_file_start, ppc_literal_escapes - lookup a file
in a list of directories
</pre><h2>SYNOPSIS</h2><pre>
#include <libtecla.h>
PathCache *new_PathCache(void);
PathCache *del_PathCache(PathCache *pc);
int pca_scan_path(PathCache *pc, const char *path);
void pca_set_check_fn(PathCache *pc, CplCheckFn *check_fn,
void *data);
char *pca_lookup_file(PathCache *pc, const char *name,
int name_len, int literal);
const char *pca_last_error(PathCache *pc);
CPL_MATCH_FN(pca_path_completions);
</pre><h2>DESCRIPTION</h2><pre>
The PathCache object is part of the tecla library (see the libte-
cla(@LIBR_MANEXT@) man page).
PathCache objects allow an application to search for files in any colon
separated list of directories, such as the unix execution PATH environ-
ment variable. Files in absolute directories are cached in a PathCache
object, whereas relative directories are scanned as needed. Using a
PathCache object, you can look up the full pathname of a simple file-
name, or you can obtain a list of the possible completions of a given
filename prefix. By default all files in the list of directories are
targets for lookup and completion, but a versatile mechanism is pro-
vided for only selecting specific types of files. The obvious applica-
tion of this facility is to provide Tab-completion and lookup of exe-
cutable commands in the unix PATH, so an optional callback which
rejects all but executable files, is provided.
</pre><h2>AN EXAMPLE</h2><pre>
Under UNIX, the following example program looks up and displays the
full pathnames of each of the command names on the command line.
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <libtecla.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
int i;
/*
* Create a cache for executable files.
*/
PathCache *pc = new_PathCache();
if(!pc)
exit(1);
/*
* Scan the user's PATH for executables.
*/
if(pca_scan_path(pc, getenv("PATH"))) {
fprintf(stderr, "%s\n", pca_last_error(pc));
exit(1);
}
/*
* Arrange to only report executable files.
*/
pca_set_check_fn(pc, cpl_check_exe, NULL);
/*
* Lookup and display the full pathname of each of the
* commands listed on the command line.
*/
for(i=1; i<argc; i++) {
char *cmd = pca_lookup_file(pc, argv[i], -1, 0);
printf("The full pathname of '%s' is %s\n", argv[i],
cmd ? cmd : "unknown");
}
pc = del_PathCache(pc); /* Clean up */
return 0;
}
The following is an example of what this does on my laptop under linux:
$ ./example less more blob
The full pathname of 'less' is /usr/bin/less
The full pathname of 'more' is /bin/more
The full pathname of 'blob' is unknown
$
</pre><h2>FUNCTION DESCRIPTIONS</h2><pre>
In order to use the facilities of this module, you must first allocate
a PathCache object by calling the new_PathCache() constructor function.
PathCache *new_PathCache(void)
This function creates the resources needed to cache and lookup files in
a list of directories. It returns NULL on error.
</pre><h2>POPULATING THE CACHE</h2><pre>
Once you have created a cache, it needs to be populated with files. To
do this, call the pca_scan_path() function.
int pca_scan_path(PathCache *pc, const char *path);
Whenever this function is called, it discards the current contents of
the cache, then scans the list of directories specified in its path
argument for files. The path argument must be a string containing a
colon-separated list of directories, such as
"/usr/bin:/home/mcs/bin:.". This can include directories specified by
absolute pathnames such as "/usr/bin", as well as sub-directories spec-
ified by relative pathnames such as "." or "bin". Files in the absolute
directories are immediately cached in the specified PathCache object,
whereas sub-directories, whose identities obviously change whenever the
current working directory is changed, are marked to be scanned on the
fly whenever a file is looked up.
On success this function return 0. On error it returns 1, and a
description of the error can be obtained by calling pca_last_error(pc).
</pre><h2>LOOKING UP FILES</h2><pre>
Once the cache has been populated with files, you can look up the full
pathname of a file, simply by specifying its filename to
pca_lookup_file().
char *pca_lookup_file(PathCache *pc, const char *name,
int name_len, int literal);
To make it possible to pass this function a filename which is actually
part of a longer string, the name_len argument can be used to specify
the length of the filename at the start of the name[] argument. If you
pass -1 for this length, the length of the string will be determined
with strlen(). If the name[] string might contain backslashes that
escape the special meanings of spaces and tabs within the filename,
give the literal argument, the value 0. Otherwise, if backslashes
should be treated as normal characters, pass 1 for the value of the
literal argument.
</pre><h2>FILENAME COMPLETION</h2><pre>
Looking up the potential completions of a filename-prefix in the file-
name cache, is achieved by passing the provided pca_path_completions()
callback function to the cpl_complete_word() function (see the cpl_com-
plete_word(@FUNC_MANEXT@) man page).
CPL_MATCH_FN(pca_path_completions);
This callback requires that its data argument be a pointer to a PcaP-
athConf object. Configuration objects of this type are allocated by
calling new_PcaPathConf().
PcaPathConf *new_PcaPathConf(PathCache *pc);
This function returns an object initialized with default configuration
parameters, which determine how the cpl_path_completions() callback
function behaves. The functions which allow you to individually change
these parameters are discussed below.
By default, the pca_path_completions() callback function searches back-
wards for the start of the filename being completed, looking for the
first un-escaped space or the start of the input line. If you wish to
specify a different location, call ppc_file_start() with the index at
which the filename starts in the input line. Passing start_index=-1 re-
enables the default behavior.
void ppc_file_start(PcaPathConf *ppc, int start_index);
By default, when pca_path_completions() looks at a filename in the
input line, each lone backslash in the input line is interpreted as
being a special character which removes any special significance of the
character which follows it, such as a space which should be taken as
part of the filename rather than delimiting the start of the filename.
These backslashes are thus ignored while looking for completions, and
subsequently added before spaces, tabs and literal backslashes in the
list of completions. To have unescaped backslashes treated as normal
characters, call ppc_literal_escapes() with a non-zero value in its
literal argument.
void ppc_literal_escapes(PcaPathConf *ppc, int literal);
When you have finished with a PcaPathConf variable, you can pass it to
the del_PcaPathConf() destructor function to reclaim its memory.
PcaPathConf *del_PcaPathConf(PcaPathConf *ppc);
</pre><h2>BEING SELECTIVE</h2><pre>
If you are only interested in certain types or files, such as, for
example, executable files, or files whose names end in a particular
suffix, you can arrange for the file completion and lookup functions to
be selective in the filenames that they return. This is done by regis-
tering a callback function with your PathCache object. Thereafter,
whenever a filename is found which either matches a filename being
looked up, or matches a prefix which is being completed, your callback
function will be called with the full pathname of the file, plus any
application-specific data that you provide, and if the callback returns
1 the filename will be reported as a match, and if it returns 0, it
will be ignored. Suitable callback functions and their prototypes
should be declared with the following macro. The CplCheckFn typedef is
also provided in case you wish to declare pointers to such functions.
#define CPL_CHECK_FN(fn) int (fn)(void *data, \
const char *pathname)
typedef CPL_CHECK_FN(CplCheckFn);
Registering one of these functions involves calling the
pca_set_check_fn() function. In addition to the callback function,
passed via the check_fn argument, you can pass a pointer to anything
via the data argument. This pointer will be passed on to your callback
function, via its own data argument, whenever it is called, so this
provides a way to pass appplication specific data to your callback.
void pca_set_check_fn(PathCache *pc, CplCheckFn *check_fn,
void *data);
Note that these callbacks are passed the full pathname of each matching
file, so the decision about whether a file is of interest can be based
on any property of the file, not just its filename. As an example, the
provided cpl_check_exe() callback function looks at the executable per-
missions of the file and the permissions of its parent directories, and
only returns 1 if the user has execute permission to the file. This
callback function can thus be used to lookup or complete command names
found in the directories listed in the user's PATH environment vari-
able. The example program given earlier in this man page provides a
demonstration of this.
Beware that if somebody tries to complete an empty string, your call-
back will get called once for every file in the cache, which could num-
ber in the thousands. If your callback does anything time consuming,
this could result in an unacceptable delay for the user, so callbacks
should be kept short.
To improve performance, whenever one of these callbacks is called, the
choice that it makes is cached, and the next time the corresponding
file is looked up, instead of calling the callback again, the cached
record of whether it was accepted or rejected is used. Thus if somebody
tries to complete an empty string, and hits tab a second time when
nothing appears to happen, there will only be one long delay, since the
second pass will operate entirely from the cached dispositions of the
files. These cached dipositions are discarded whenever pca_scan_path()
is called, and whenever pca_set_check_fn() is called with changed call-
back function or data arguments.
</pre><h2>ERROR HANDLING</h2><pre>
If pca_scan_path() reports that an error occurred by returning 1, you
can obtain a terse description of the error by calling
pca_last_error(pc). This returns an internal string containing an error
message.
const char *pca_last_error(PathCache *pc);
</pre><h2>CLEANING UP</h2><pre>
Once you have finished using a PathCache object, you can reclaim its
resources by passing it to the del_PathCache() destructor function.
This takes a pointer to one of these objects, and always returns NULL.
PathCache *del_PathCache(PathCache *pc);
</pre><h2>THREAD SAFETY</h2><pre>
In multi-threaded programs, you should use the libtecla_r.a version of
the library. This uses POSIX reentrant functions where available (hence
the _r suffix), and disables features that rely on non-reentrant system
functions. In the case of this module, the only disabled feature is
username completion in ~username/ expressions, in cpl_path_comple-
tions().
Using the libtecla_r.a version of the library, it is safe to use the
facilities of this module in multiple threads, provided that each
thread uses a separately allocated PathCache object. In other words, if
two threads want to do path searching, they should each call new_Path-
Cache() to allocate their own caches.
</pre><h2>FILES</h2><pre>
libtecla.a - The tecla library
libtecla.h - The tecla header file.
</pre><h2>SEE ALSO</h2><pre>
<a href="libtecla.html"><b>libtecla</b></a>, <a href="gl_get_line.html"><b>gl_get_line</b></a>, <a href="ef_expand_file.html"><b>ef_expand_file</b></a>,
<a href="cpl_complete_word.html"><b>cpl_complete_word</b></a>
</pre><h2>AUTHOR</h2><pre>
Martin Shepherd (mcs@astro.caltech.edu)
<a href="pca_lookup_file.html"><b>pca_lookup_file</b></a>
</pre>
</body>
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