General use case
I am trying to implement a basic shell.
Description
I need to read user input until some delimiters are pressed so a corresponding action can be performed. Those delimiter could be a single 'a', a single 'b' or a single 'c'.
An input example would look like this (where > is the shell prompt):
> 111-222-333-444a
Ok, '111-222-333-444' entered
Why do I want inline delimiter instead of 'new-line' delimiter?
Because I would like to listen to keyboard event such as 'up-arrow' to erase the current command and print the last command (implementing a history feature).
Because I would like to listen to keyboard event such as 'tabulation' to automaticly complete the current command (implementing auto-completion feature).
What I have so far
Up to now, my code looks like this:
bool done = false;
char c;
while (!done && std::cin.get(c))
{
switch (c)
{
case 'a':
// Do something corresponding to 'a'
done = true;
break;
case 'b':
// Do something corresponding to 'b'
done = true;
break;
case 'c':
// Do something corresponding to 'c'
done = true;
break;
default:
// buffer input until a delimiter is pressed
break;
}
}
However, the loop seem to be executed only after the 'new-line' key have been pressed. This behaviour kill the interactive essence of the user input.
What is the question?
I know std::ostream is buffered so content is not write to disk until some event occured but what about std::istream. Is it buffered? If yes, how is it and what are my option to bypass this behaviour?
Also, I've tagged this question as 'homework' because, event if it is not a school exercice, it is an exercise I am trying to do by myself and I do not want to only pick a library that implement all this stuff.
