What will give me something like ruby readline with a default value?

Question

If I want to have a prompt on the terminal with a default value already typed in, how can I do that?

Ruby\'s standard Readline.readline() lets me set th

Answer 1

What you are asking is possible with Readline. There's a callback where you can get control after the prompt is displayed and insert some text into the read buffer.

This worked for me:

Readline.pre_input_hook = -> do
  Readline.insert_text "hello.txt"
  Readline.redisplay

  # Remove the hook right away.
  Readline.pre_input_hook = nil
end

input = Readline.readline("Filename: ", false)
puts "-- input:#{input.inspect}"

BTW, I fairly tried to use HighLine, but it appeared to be a no-alternative to me. One of the disappointing reasons was the fact that HighLine#ask reads cursor movement keys as regular input. I stopped looking in that direction after that sort of discovery.