#Trminal programming define serial
#Trminal programming define driver
#Trminal programming define portable
#Trminal programming define software
#Trminal programming define windows

With Windows Console, some actions can be performed in the opposite-to-natural direction on the input and output streams.

The final terminal is only responsible for displaying information and receiving input through that bidirectional communication channel. The console could never have enough context to fully understand these scenarios in a broad manner like the client application can.īy contrast, other platforms use virtual terminal sequences to handle these activities and virtual terminal communication itself through reusable client-side libraries, like readline and ncurses. This way of handling responsibility also makes the final interactive experience of these Windows command-line applications completely dependent on the console host's implementation, priorities, and release cycle.įor example, advanced line editing features, like syntax highlighting and complex selection, are only possible when a command-line application handles editing concerns itself. However, this makes it nearly impossible to connect those activities remotely across platforms, versions, or scenarios due to variations in implementations and availability. The Windows Console way of handling this responsibility in the console host and API makes it quicker and easier to write a command-line application with these features, removing the responsibility of remembering drawing state or handling editing convenience features. This might include aliases and command history programmed within the console subsystem and host environment, instead of within the command-line client application itself.īy contrast, other platforms make memory of the current state of the application and convenience functionality the responsibility of the command-line utility or shell itself. Some Windows Console APIs provide low-level access to the input and output buffers or convenience functions for interactive command-lines. On the contrary, the Windows Console APIs have only been accessible on the local machine and all efforts to remote them would require building an entire remote calling and transport interface layer beyond just a simple channel.

#Trminal programming define serial

Simply connecting an outbound and an inbound transport channel (or a single bidirectional channel) over a pipe, socket, file, serial port, or any other device is sufficient to completely carry all information required for an application speaking these sequences to a remote host. They require no additional work to transport, or perform remote procedure calls, over what is required to set up a standard remote command-line connection. Virtual terminal sequences hold a major advantage for remote access. An extensive adapter or translation library must be written between Windows and virtual terminal, or vice-versa, when attempting to port command-line utilities from one platform or another.

#Trminal programming define portable

Virtual terminal sequences are natively supported across platforms, making terminal applications and command-line utilities easily portable between versions and variations of operating systems, with the exception of Windows.īy contrast, Windows Console APIs are only supported on Windows. Many extensions exist within the virtual terminal sequence domain and some sequences are more widely supported than others, but it is safe to say that the world has standardized on this as the command language for command-line experiences with a well-known subset being supported by virtually every terminal and command-line client application.

#Trminal programming define software

These sequences are rooted in an ECMA Standard and series of extensions by many vendors tracing back to Digital Equipment Corporation and Tektronix terminals, through to more modern and common software terminals, like xterm.

#Trminal programming define driver

(For a time, Microsoft supported this behavior too in early editions of DOS and Windows through a driver called ANSI.SYS.)īy contrast, virtual terminal sequences (in a variety of dialects) drive the command-line environment operations for all other platforms. However, other non-Windows platforms have never afforded this specific API-driven approach to their command-line environments, choosing instead to use virtual terminal sequences embedded within the standard input and standard output streams. The Windows Console provides a broad API surface for client command-line applications to manipulate both the output display buffer and the user input buffer. Virtual terminal sequences use non-printable escape characters for signaling commands interleaved with normal printable text. Virtual terminal sequences is defined as a language of commands that's embedded in the standard input and standard output streams. The classic Windows Console API surface is defined as the series of C language functional interfaces on kernel32.dll with 'Console' in the name. This article will outline the difference between the two and discuss the reasons for our recommendation. Our recommendation is to replace the classic Windows Console API with virtual terminal sequences.