[Chapter 19] 19.2 Win32::Console

19.2 Win32::Console

Win32::Console implements the Win32 console and character mode functions. They give you full control on the console input and output, including: support of off-screen console buffers (e.g., multiple screen pages); reading and writing of characters, attributes, and whole portions of the screen; and complete processing of keyboard and mouse events.

The new constructor is used to create a console object. It can take two forms:

$con = Win32::Console->new(
standard_handle
);  $con = Win32::Console->new(
accessmode
, 
sharemode
);

The first form creates a handle to a standard channel.



standard_handle

can be one of


STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE


STD_ERROR_HANDLE

, or


STD_INPUT_HANDLE

The second form creates a console screen buffer in memory, which you can access for reading and writing as a normal console, and then redirect on the standard output (the screen) with Display . In this case, you can specify accessmode to be GENERIC_READ , GENERIC_WRITE , or both, determining the permissions you will have on the created buffer.

sharemode affects the way the console can be shared. It can be specified either as FILE_SHARE_READ , FILE_SHARE_WRITE , or both. If you don't specify any of those parameters, all four flags will be used.

Methods supported by the Win32::Console module are:

19.2.1 Constants

The following constants are exported in the main namespace of your script using Win32::Console:

BACKGROUND_BLUE		        BACKGROUND_GREEN BACKGROUND_INTENSITY	    BACKGROUND_RED CAPSLOCK_ON		            CONSOLE_TEXTMODE_BUFFER     ENABLE_ECHO_INPUT		    ENABLE_LINE_INPUT ENABLE_MOUSE_INPUT		    ENABLE_PROCESSED_INPUT ENABLE_PROCESSED_OUTPUT	    ENABLE_WINDOW_INPUT ENABLE_WRAP_AT_EOL_OUTPUT	ENHANCED_KEY FILE_SHARE_READ		        FILE_SHARE_WRITE FOREGROUND_BLUE		        FOREGROUND_GREEN FOREGROUND_INTENSITY	    FOREGROUND_RED LEFT_ALT_PRESSED		    LEFT_CTRL_PRESSED NUMLOCK_ON		            GENERIC_READ GENERIC_WRITE		        RIGHT_ALT_PRESSED RIGHT_CTRL_PRESSED		    SCROLLLOCK_ON SHIFT_PRESSED		        STD_INPUT_HANDLE STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE		    STD_ERROR_HANDLE

Additionally, the following variables can be used:

$FG_BLACK			$FG_BLUE $FG_LIGHTBLUE		$FG_RED $FG_LIGHTRED		$FG_GREEN $FG_LIGHTGREEN		$FG_MAGENTA $FG_LIGHTMAGENTA		$FG_CYAN $FG_LIGHTCYAN		$FG_BROWN $FG_YELLOW		$FG_GRAY $FG_WHITE $BG_BLACK			$BG_BLUE $BG_LIGHTBLUE		$BG_RED $BG_LIGHTRED		$BG_GREEN $BG_LIGHTGREEN		$BG_MAGENTA $BG_LIGHTMAGENTA		$BG_CYAN $BG_LIGHTCYAN		$BG_BROWN $BG_YELLOW		$BG_GRAY $BG_WHITE $ATTR_NORMAL		$ATTR_INVERSE


ATTR_NORMAL

is set to gray foreground on black background (DOS's standard colors).


19.1 Win32::Clipboard		19.3 Win32::ChangeNotification