StepTalk tools

The StepTalk Shell

!! StepTalk Shell

StepTalk shell is a handy tool for interactive scripting with GNUstep objects. The real name of the tool is stshell.

Important notice: The stshell tool is not built by default by StepTalk, because it requires extra library called libreadline.

After launching the stshell it will greet you by:

Welcome to the StepTalk shell.
StepTalk > _

First steps with the shell

Try following examples, line by line

1 + 1.
NSDate date.
(NSHost hostWithName:'www.gnustep.org') addresses

Tab Completion

StepTalk Shell can do TAB completion of variable names, class names and selectors. Press <TAB> where indicated:

NSFileMa<TAB> defa<TAB>Ma<TAB> curr<TAB>Di<TAB>P<TAB>

Getting Help

Get a class of an object:

'aString' class

List methods that an object can respond to (superclass methods are not included):

'aString' methodNames

List class methods:

NSString methodNames

List instace methods:

NSString instanceMethodNames

Find a selector:

Runtime selectorsContainingString: 'init'

Find implementors:

Runtime implementorsOfSelector: #compare:

AppKit

To use AppKit clases, execute the shell by:

$ stshell -env AppKit

or load the module at the runtime:

> Environment loadModule:'AppKit'

How to get a filename using the Open panel?

NSOpenPanel openPanel runModal ; filename

Create a Workspace object for further experiments

Workspace := NSWorkspace sharedWorkspace

Launch an application:

Workspace launchApplication:'Ink'

Open a file

Workspace openFile:'file name'

or

Workspace openFile:(NSOpenPanel openPanel runModal ; filename)

Unix Shell Equivalents

For Unix commands equivalets, refer to the Unix.txt file in the Shell source directory.

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See also: StepTalk