ttys

I think it would be very useful to have a library that
implements the bulk of the TTY handling for a server. There
are going to be different programs that need to provide
TTY features (such as telnetd and cons2). The interface
is fairly complicated, involving:

   - select support
   - non-blocking reads (a deviation from the normal FS_READ
     semantics which isnt documented)
   - CR handling
   - interrupt handling / process group tracking
   - stty data (screen size for example)

The TTY support currently in telnetd is rather fragile.
I can probably get it patched up and hacked into working
condition in short order, but duplicating the complex
interface is probably going to lead to bugs and inconsistencies.

As a side note, it seems like there are a lot of different
server/client interfaces which deviate slightly from the
the "norm". It would probably be a good idea at some point
to go through and document what the interface is (partially
done in the headers already) as well as the deviations
(extensions and omissions) for various implemented interfaces,
and perhaps do some code cleanup in the process.

Tim N.
Received on 23 Jul 2004 09:38:35 GMT