Re^2: Saving a Perl session to a file

[Discipulus]

very nice indeed.. but i've a problem with this: if i understand the captured rectangle contains everything was on the screen before the capture script was launched but when your program emits it's output i get the whole text in vertical sense ie only in the first column of the console.

Can be related to the following regexes (which i do not understand)?

 
$rect =~ s{ \0\a\0       } ''xmsg;
$rect =~ s{ [ ]+ \z      } ''xms;
$rect =~ s{ .{$width} \z } ''xms;

Here too win7 + strawberry perl

perl -MConfig -MWin32::Console -E "say $Config{version}; say $Win32::C
+onsole::VERSION"

5.14.2
0.10

thanks

L*

[AnomalousMonk]

This was just a quick hack thrown together to show what might be done with Win32::Console.

After I got to the point at which I captured $rect, I dd-ed it (Data::Dump) and found that a string that appeared as, e.g., 'perl...' in the console was dumped as  "p\0\a\0e\0\a\0r\0\a\0l\0\a\0..." I used the
    $rect =~ s{ \0\a\0 } ''xmsg;
substitution to convert the string back to 'perl...'. Why the extra "\0\a\0" groups were present with each character I don't know; I assume some character set/encoding effect. I didn't investigate further, but just zapped them. I would suggest you do a raw dump of whatever you first get back from the
    my $rect = $con_current->ReadRect($left, $top, $right, $bottom);
call and adjust as necessary for your system; I don't know what the appropriate  s/// will be for you.

What you get back from the  ReadRect() call is apparently a single long line without newlines. You then may have to break this string up into lines (possibly triming trailing whitespace) in order to have something useful, but again, I didn't bother with this step. I did find a bunch of blanks may be present at the end of the string, which I got rid of with the
    $rect =~ s{ [ ]+ \z } ''xms;
substitution. Purely for cosmetic purposes, a further substitution of
    $rect =~ s{ .{$width} \z } ''xms;
removes the last line with the
    c:\@Work\Perl\monks\gpmathis>capsess
invocation before printing the  $rect string.

... i get the whole text in vertical sense ie only in the first column of the console.

By this I assume you mean that 'perl...' appears as

p
e
r
l
.
.
.

in your console window. I have no idea why this is, but can only suggest that you dump the raw  $rect string returned by the  ReadRect() call and go on from there, hacking away until you get something that looks ok. Good luck.

[Discipulus]

hello estimed AnomalousMonk,

I do not wanted you doing the job in my place ;=) I just hoped you had a more precise idea of how to work with this module: infact i looked at it several times in the past and i gave up, everytime.

> to show what might be done with Win32::Console.

This is exactly my problem. What is effectively possible to do with this? The lack of SYNOPSIS in the module is well.. disorienting at least

The /eg/sample.pl runs fine here but is not a simple sample. Nor the net nor PM are source of great examples..

The module date 10 Feb 1997, by dada, the XS seems to do everything and is beyond my possibilities.

And yes your example works for me but as you said it prints everything in vertical, as you shown.

I'v played with it a bit, using what the logic of names suggested to me and got not WriteRect working as I expected:

use warnings;
use strict;

use Win32::Console qw(GENERIC_READ GENERIC_WRITE);
use Data::Dump qw(dd);

my $con_current = Win32::Console->new(GENERIC_READ | GENERIC_WRITE);
$con_current or die 'new Win32::Console failed';

my ($left, $top, $right, $bottom) = $con_current->Window;
print "Dimensions (left top right bottom):",qq($left, $top, $right, $b
+ottom \n);

my $rect = $con_current->ReadRect($left, $top, $right, $bottom);
$rect or die 'read Win32::Console failed';

#$rect =~ s{ \0\a\0  } ''xmsg;
#$rect =~ s{ [ ]+ \z } ''xmsg;

#dd $rect;
print qq{======\nBefore writing anything from Win32.:Console\n======\n
+};

$con_current->WriteRect($rect,$left, $top, $right, $bottom )or die 'wr
+ite Win32::Console failed'; 

print "dd of \$rect: "; dd $rect;

##OUTPUT

Dimensions (left top right bottom):0, 0, 119, 29
======
Before writing anything from Win32.:Console
======
dd of $rect: (" \0\37\0" x 3600)

I suspect \0\37\0 is because i run the sample.pl and the screen remained white on blue; after i issued color 0A (green on black) i got dd of $rect: (" \0\n\0" x 3600) so this seems to be the attribute thing;

Your good luck was now comprensible ;=)

thanks anyway

L*

[AnomalousMonk]

Win32::Console is frustrating to use because it exposes you to the frustrations inherent in Windows!

There are some problems I see in your code.
    my $con_current = Win32::Console->new(GENERIC_READ | GENERIC_WRITE);
I can't get this to work. What works for me is  STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE as the argument to new().
    $con_current->WriteRect($rect,$left, $top, $right, $bottom )or die 'write Win32::Console failed';
This will write the rectangle back to the console window at the exact position from which it was read, and there will be no visible effect!

Here's a version of your code modified to produce some effect in the console window. The rectangle read by  ReadRect() has its coordinates shifted so a difference can be seen when written back by  WriteRect(). (You might also try changing color, etc., attributes to produce a noticeable change.)

Read more... (926 Bytes)

The intent of my original code was to produce a print-able string that might also be saved to a file. I see now that the
    $rect =~ s{ \0\a\0  } ''xmsg;
substitution to strip out the attribute stuff was too specific to my console configuration. Try the more general
    $rect =~ s{ \G . \K ... } ''xmsg;
(Note: This regex needs Perl version 5.10+ for the  \K regex operator. If you have a pre-5.10 Perl, I can supply an alternate regex.)

All this is still very kludgy, but I hope it may be of some interest or use to you. And again, good luck!