Discussion on: Shareable CLI demo?

[Ben Lovy]

I could if it were just crunching an input and spitting an output, but it runs the user through a series of interactive prompts. I don't think curl is suited for this, could be wrong?

[David Wickes]

Yup, curl won't cut it.

Are the prompts for 'configuration' only? If so you could still stick it on a server, but take some querystring params for the options (built into a web page UI), then do the major work server side.

Another option... perform the interaction over TCP instead of HTTP - now you can use netcat to demo it.

[David Wickes]

Another option... perform the interaction over TCP instead of HTTP - now you can use netcat to demo it.

(I like this idea so much I almost want to write a 'framework' for it...)

• start a TCP listener
• on connection, start the cli tool in a separate process
• hook stdin and stdout of the tool to the TCP connection
• ????
• PROFIT

[Ben Lovy]

The WASM thing is absolutely overkill, with you there 100%.

Are the prompts for 'configuration' only?

Not really - the prompts are the main event. It builds a branching tree of prompts from the input file provided, and can refer to previously received responses.

The "real" option would be to ditch text prompts and build graphical widgets, which sounds fun, too, but not a one-day thing.

[Ben Lovy]

This definitely sounds like it fits. I've never mucked about with TCP before but I don't think there's anything in my way conceptually, at least.

[David Wickes]

I've just scrapped around with this in Go - I'm sure you can convert to Rust with ease - using cowsay as the target command line app:

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "net"
    "os"
    "os/exec"
)

func main() {
    listen, err := net.Listen("tcp", "127.0.0.1:6000")
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Println(err)
        os.Exit(1)
    }
    conn, err := listen.Accept()
    if err != nil {
        fmt.Println(err)
        os.Exit(1)
    }

    cmd := exec.Command("cowsay")
    cmd.Stdin = conn
    cmd.Stdout = conn
    cmd.Start()
    cmd.Wait()
}

[Ben Lovy]

/thread

Above and beyond, David, thanks for the sample!

That might be exactly the ticket - no real need to translate to Rust, I might just start with your Go template if you don't mind, that looks like less friction.