\section{\module{pty} ---

Pseudo-terminal utilities}

\declaremodule{standard}{pty}

\platform{IRIX, Linux} %XXX Is that the right way???

\modulesynopsis{Pseudo-Terminal Handling for SGI and Linux.}

\moduleauthor{Steen Lumholt}{}

\sectionauthor{Moshe Zadka}{[email protected]}

The \module{pty} module defines operations for handling the

pseudo-terminal concept: starting another process and being able to

write to and read from its controlling terminal programmatically.

Because pseudo-terminal handling is highly platform dependant, there

is code to do it only for SGI and Linux. (The Linux code is supposed

to work on other platforms, but hasn't been tested yet.)

The \module{pty} module defines the following functions:

\begin{funcdesc}{fork}{}

Fork. Connect the child's controlling terminal to a pseudo-terminal.

Return value is \code{(\var{pid}, \var{fd})}. Note that the child

gets \var{pid} 0, and the \var{fd} is \emph{invalid}. The parent's

return value is the \var{pid} of the child, and \var{fd} is a file

descriptor connected to the child's controlling terminal (and also

to the child's standard input and output.

\end{funcdesc}

\begin{funcdesc}{spawn}{argv\optional{, master_read\optional{, stdin_read}}}

Spawn a process, and connect its controlling terminal with the current

process's standard io. This is often used to baffle programs which

insist on reading from the controlling terminal.

The functions \var{master_read} and \var{stdin_read} should be

functions which read from a file-descriptor. The defaults try to read

1024 bytes each time they are called.

\end{funcdesc}