Streams provide flexible access to GAP's input and output processing. An input stream takes characters from some source and delivers them to GAP which reads them from the stream. When an input stream has delivered all characters it is at end-of-stream. An output stream receives characters from GAP which writes them to the stream, and delivers them to some destination.
A major use of streams is to provide efficient and flexible access to files. Files can be read and written using Read (9.7-1) and AppendTo (9.7-3), however the former only allows a complete file to be read as GAP input and the latter imposes a high time penalty if many small pieces of output are written to a large file. Streams allow input files in other formats to be read and processed, and files to be built up efficiently from small pieces of output. Streams may also be used for other purposes, for example to read from and print to GAP strings, or to read input directly from the user.
Any stream is either a text stream, which translates the end-of-line character (\n) to or from the system's representation of end-of-line (e.g., new-line under UNIX and carriage-return-new-line under DOS), or a binary stream, which does not translate the end-of-line character. The processing of other unprintable characters by text streams is undefined. Binary streams pass them unchanged.
Whereas it is cheap to append to a stream, streams do consume system resources, and only a limited number can be open at any time, therefore it is necessary to close a stream as soon as possible using CloseStream (10.2-1). If creating a stream failed then LastSystemError (9.1-1) can be used to get information about the failure.
‣ IsStream( obj ) | ( category ) |
Streams are GAP objects and all open streams, input, output, text and binary, lie in this category.
‣ IsClosedStream( obj ) | ( category ) |
When a stream is closed, its type changes to lie in IsClosedStream. This category is used to install methods that trap accesses to closed streams.
‣ IsInputStream( obj ) | ( category ) |
All input streams lie in this category, and support input operations such as ReadByte (10.3-3) (see 10.3)
‣ IsInputTextStream( obj ) | ( category ) |
All text input streams lie in this category. They translate new-line characters read.
‣ IsInputTextNone( obj ) | ( category ) |
It is convenient to use a category to distinguish dummy streams (see 10.9) from others. Other distinctions are usually made using representations
‣ IsOutputStream( obj ) | ( category ) |
All output streams lie in this category and support basic operations such as WriteByte (10.4-1) (see Section 10.4).
‣ IsOutputTextStream( obj ) | ( category ) |
All text output streams lie in this category and translate new-line characters on output.
‣ IsOutputTextNone( obj ) | ( category ) |
It is convenient to use a category to distinguish dummy streams (see 10.9) from others. Other distinctions are usually made using representations
‣ StreamsFamily | ( family ) |
All streams lie in the StreamsFamily.
‣ CloseStream( stream ) | ( operation ) |
In order to preserve system resources and to flush output streams every stream should be closed as soon as it is no longer used using CloseStream.
It is an error to try to read characters from or write characters to a closed stream. Closing a stream tells the GAP kernel and/or the operating system kernel that the file is no longer needed. This may be necessary because the GAP kernel and/or the operating system may impose a limit on how many streams may be open simultaneously.
‣ FileDescriptorOfStream( stream ) | ( operation ) |
returns the UNIX file descriptor of the underlying file. This is mainly useful for the UNIXSelect (10.2-3) function call. This is as of now only available on UNIX-like operating systems and only for streams to local processes and local files.
‣ UNIXSelect( inlist, outlist, exclist, timeoutsec, timeoutusec ) | ( function ) |
makes the UNIX C-library function select accessible from GAP for streams. The functionality is as described in the man page (see UNIX file descriptors (integers) for streams. They can be obtained via FileDescriptorOfStream (10.2-2) for streams to local processes and to local files. The argument timeoutsec is a timeout in seconds as in the struct timeval on the C level. The argument timeoutusec is analogously in microseconds. The total timeout is the sum of both. If one of those timeout arguments is not a small integer then no timeout is applicable (fail is allowed for the timeout arguments).
The return value is the number of streams that are ready, this may be 0 if a timeout was specified. All file descriptors in the three lists that are not yet ready are replaced by fail in this function. So the lists are changed!
This function is not available on the Macintosh architecture and is only available if your operating system has select, which is detected during compilation of GAP.
Two operations normally used to read files: Read (9.7-1) and ReadAsFunction (9.7-2) can also be used to read GAP input from a stream. The input is immediately parsed and executed. When reading from a stream str, the GAP kernel generates calls to ReadLine(str) to supply text to the parser.
Three further operations: ReadByte (10.3-3), ReadLine (10.3-4) and ReadAll (10.3-5), support reading characters from an input stream without parsing them. This can be used to read data in any format and process it in GAP.
Additional operations for input streams support detection of end of stream, and (for those streams for which it is appropriate) random access to the data.
‣ Read( input-text-stream ) | ( operation ) |
reads the input-text-stream as input until end-of-stream occurs. See 9.7 for details.
‣ ReadAsFunction( input-text-stream ) | ( operation ) |
reads the input-text-stream as function and returns this function. See 9.7 for details.
gap> # a function with local `a' does not change the global one gap> a := 1;; gap> i := InputTextString( "local a; a := 10; return a*10;" );; gap> ReadAsFunction(i)(); 100 gap> a; 1 gap> # reading it via `Read' does gap> i := InputTextString( "a := 10;" );; gap> Read(i); gap> a; 10
‣ ReadByte( input-stream ) | ( operation ) |
ReadByte returns one character (returned as integer) from the input stream input-stream. ReadByte returns fail if there is no character available, in particular if it is at the end of a file.
If input-stream is the input stream of a input/output process, ReadByte may also return fail if no byte is currently available.
ReadByte is the basic operation for input streams. If a ReadByte method is installed for a user-defined type of stream which does not block, then all the other input stream operations will work (although possibly not at peak efficiency).
ReadByte will wait (block) until a byte is available. For instance if the stream is a connection to another process, it will wait for the process to output a byte.
‣ ReadLine( input-stream ) | ( operation ) |
ReadLine returns one line (returned as string with the newline) from the input stream input-stream. ReadLine reads in the input until a newline is read or the end-of-stream is encountered.
If input-stream is the input stream of a input/output process, ReadLine may also return fail or return an incomplete line if the other process has not yet written any more. It will always wait (block) for at least one byte to be available, but will then return as much input as is available, up to a limit of one line
A default method is supplied for ReadLine which simply calls ReadByte (10.3-3) repeatedly. This is only safe for streams that cannot block. The kernel uses calls to ReadLine to supply input to the parser when reading from a stream.
‣ ReadAll( input-stream[, limit] ) | ( operation ) |
ReadAll returns all characters as string from the input stream stream-in. It waits (blocks) until at least one character is available from the stream, or until there is evidence that no characters will ever be available again. This last indicates that the stream is at end-of-stream. Otherwise, it reads as much input as it can from the stream without blocking further and returns it to the user. If the stream is already at end of file, so that no bytes are available, fail is returned. In the case of a file stream connected to a normal file (not a pseudo-tty or named pipe or similar), all the bytes should be immediately available and this function will read the remainder of the file.
With a second argument, at most limit bytes will be returned. Depending on the stream a bounded number of additional bytes may have been read into an internal buffer.
A default method is supplied for ReadAll which simply calls ReadLine (10.3-4) repeatedly. This is only really safe for streams which cannot block. Other streams should install a method for ReadAll
gap> i := InputTextString( "1Hallo\nYou\n1" );; gap> ReadByte(i); 49 gap> CHAR_INT(last); '1' gap> ReadLine(i); "Hallo\n" gap> ReadLine(i); "You\n" gap> ReadLine(i); "1" gap> ReadLine(i); fail gap> ReadAll(i); "" gap> RewindStream(i);; gap> ReadAll(i); "1Hallo\nYou\n1"
‣ IsEndOfStream( input-stream ) | ( operation ) |
IsEndOfStream returns true if the input stream is at end-of-stream, and false otherwise. Note that IsEndOfStream might return false even if the next ReadByte (10.3-3) fails.
‣ PositionStream( input-stream ) | ( operation ) |
Some input streams, such as string streams and file streams attached to disk files, support a form of random access by way of the operations PositionStream, SeekPositionStream (10.3-9) and RewindStream (10.3-8). PositionStream returns a non-negative integer denoting the current position in the stream (usually the number of characters before the next one to be read.
If this is not possible, for example for an input stream attached to standard input (normally the keyboard), then fail is returned
‣ RewindStream( input-stream ) | ( operation ) |
RewindStream attempts to return an input stream to its starting condition, so that all the same characters can be read again. It returns true if the rewind succeeds and fail otherwise
A default method implements RewindStream using SeekPositionStream (10.3-9).
‣ SeekPositionStream( input-stream, pos ) | ( operation ) |
SeekPositionStream attempts to rewind or wind forward an input stream to the specified position. This is not possible for all streams. It returns true if the seek is successful and fail otherwise.
‣ WriteByte( output-stream, byte ) | ( operation ) |
writes the next character (given as integer) to the output stream output-stream. The function returns true if the write succeeds and fail otherwise.
WriteByte is the basic operation for output streams. If a WriteByte method is installed for a user-defined type of stream, then all the other output stream operations will work (although possibly not at peak efficiency).
‣ WriteLine( output-stream, string ) | ( operation ) |
appends string to output-stream. A final newline is written. The function returns true if the write succeeds and fail otherwise.
A default method is installed which implements WriteLine by repeated calls to WriteByte (10.4-1).
‣ WriteAll( output-stream, string ) | ( operation ) |
appends string to output-stream. No final newline is written. The function returns true if the write succeeds and fail otherwise. It will block as long as necessary for the write operation to complete (for example for a child process to clear its input buffer )
A default method is installed which implements WriteAll by repeated calls to WriteByte (10.4-1).
When printing or appending to a stream (using PrintTo (9.7-3), or AppendTo (9.7-3) or when logging to a stream), the kernel generates a call to WriteAll for each line output.
gap> str := "";; a := OutputTextString(str,true);; gap> WriteByte(a,INT_CHAR('H')); true gap> WriteLine(a,"allo"); true gap> WriteAll(a,"You\n"); true gap> CloseStream(a); gap> Print(str); Hallo You
‣ PrintTo( output-stream, arg1, ... ) | ( function ) |
‣ AppendTo( output-stream, arg1, ... ) | ( function ) |
These functions work like Print (6.3-4), except that the output is appended to the output stream output-stream.
gap> str := "";; a := OutputTextString(str,true);; gap> AppendTo( a, (1,2,3), ":", Z(3) ); gap> CloseStream(a); gap> Print( str, "\n" ); (1,2,3):Z(3)
‣ LogTo( stream ) | ( operation ) |
causes the subsequent interaction to be logged to the output stream stream. It works in precisely the same way as it does for files (see LogTo (9.7-4)).
‣ InputLogTo( stream ) | ( operation ) |
causes the subsequent input to be logged to the output stream stream. It works just like it does for files (see InputLogTo (9.7-5)).
‣ OutputLogTo( stream ) | ( operation ) |
causes the subsequent output to be logged to the output stream stream. It works just like it does for files (see OutputLogTo (9.7-6)).
‣ SetPrintFormattingStatus( stream, newstatus ) | ( operation ) |
‣ PrintFormattingStatus( stream ) | ( operation ) |
When text is being sent to an output text stream via PrintTo (9.7-3), AppendTo (9.7-3), LogTo (10.4-5), etc., it is by default formatted just as it would be were it being printed to the screen. Thus, it is broken into lines of reasonable length at (where possible) sensible places, lines containing elements of lists or records are indented, and so forth. This is appropriate if the output is eventually to be viewed by a human, and harmless if it to passed as input to GAP, but may be unhelpful if the output is to be passed as input to another program. It is possible to turn off this behaviour for a stream using the SetPrintFormattingStatus operation, and to test whether it is on or off using PrintFormattingStatus.
SetPrintFormattingStatus sets whether output sent to the output stream stream via PrintTo (9.7-3), AppendTo (9.7-3), etc. will be formatted with line breaks and indentation. If the second argument newstatus is true then output will be so formatted, and if false then it will not. If the stream is not a text stream, only false is allowed.
PrintFormattingStatus returns true if output sent to the output text stream stream via PrintTo (9.7-3), AppendTo (9.7-3), etc. will be formatted with line breaks and indentation, and false otherwise. For non-text streams, it returns false. If as argument stream the string "*stdout*" is given, these functions refer to the formatting status of the standard output (so usually the users terminal screen).
These functions do not influence the behaviour of the low level functions WriteByte (10.4-1), WriteLine (10.4-2) or WriteAll (10.4-3) which always write without formatting.
gap> s := "";; str := OutputTextString(s,false);; gap> PrintTo(str,Primes{[1..30]}); gap> s; "[ 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61,\ \n 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97, 101, 103, 107, 109, 113 ]" gap> Print(s,"\n"); [ 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97, 101, 103, 107, 109, 113 ] gap> SetPrintFormattingStatus(str, false); gap> PrintTo(str,Primes{[1..30]}); gap> s; "[ 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61,\ \n 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97, 101, 103, 107, 109, 113 ][ 2, 3, 5, 7\ , 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, \ 79, 83, 89, 97, 101, 103, 107, 109, 113 ]" gap> Print(s,"\n"); [ 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97, 101, 103, 107, 109, 113 ][ 2, 3, 5, 7, 1\ 1, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79,\ 83, 89, 97, 101, 103, 107, 109, 113 ]
File streams are streams associated with files. An input file stream reads the characters it delivers from a file, an output file stream prints the characters it receives to a file. The following functions can be used to create such streams. They return fail if an error occurred, in this case LastSystemError (9.1-1) can be used to get information about the error.
‣ InputTextFile( filename ) | ( operation ) |
InputTextFile( filename ) returns an input stream in the category IsInputTextStream (10.1-4) that delivers the characters from the file filename.
‣ OutputTextFile( filename, append ) | ( operation ) |
OutputTextFile( filename, append ) returns an output stream in the category IsOutputTextFile that writes received characters to the file filename. If append is false, then the file is emptied first, otherwise received characters are added at the end of the file.
gap> # use a temporary directory gap> name := Filename( DirectoryTemporary(), "test" );; gap> # create an output stream, append output, and close again gap> output := OutputTextFile( name, true );; gap> AppendTo( output, "Hallo\n", "You\n" ); gap> CloseStream(output); gap> # create an input, print complete contents of file, and close gap> input := InputTextFile(name);; gap> Print( ReadAll(input) ); Hallo You gap> CloseStream(input); gap> # append a single line gap> output := OutputTextFile( name, true );; gap> AppendTo( output, "AppendLine\n" ); gap> # close output stream to flush the output gap> CloseStream(output); gap> # create an input, print complete contents of file, and close gap> input := InputTextFile(name);; gap> Print( ReadAll(input) ); Hallo You AppendLine gap> CloseStream(input);
The commands described in this section create streams which accept characters from, or deliver characters to, the user, via the keyboard or the GAP session display.
‣ InputTextUser( ) | ( function ) |
returns an input text stream which delivers characters typed by the user (or from the standard input device if it has been redirected). In normal circumstances, characters are delivered one by one as they are typed, without waiting until the end of a line. No prompts are printed.
‣ OutputTextUser( ) | ( function ) |
returns an output stream which delivers characters to the user's display (or the standard output device if it has been redirected). Each character is delivered immediately it is written, without waiting for a full line of output. Text written in this way is not written to the session log (see LogTo (9.7-4)).
‣ InputFromUser( arg ) | ( function ) |
prints the arg as a prompt, then waits until a text is typed by the user (or from the standard input device if it has been redirected). This text must be a single expression, followed by one enter. This is evaluated (see EvalString (27.9-3)) and the result is returned.
String streams are streams associated with strings. An input string stream reads the characters it delivers from a string, an output string stream appends the characters it receives to a string. The following functions can be used to create such streams.
‣ InputTextString( string ) | ( operation ) |
InputTextString( string ) returns an input stream that delivers the characters from the string string. The string is not changed when reading characters from it and changing the string after the call to InputTextString has no influence on the input stream.
‣ OutputTextString( list, append ) | ( operation ) |
returns an output stream that puts all received characters into the list list. If append is false, then the list is emptied first, otherwise received characters are added at the end of the list.
gap> # read input from a string gap> input := InputTextString( "Hallo\nYou\n" );; gap> ReadLine(input); "Hallo\n" gap> ReadLine(input); "You\n" gap> # print to a string gap> str := "";; gap> out := OutputTextString( str, true );; gap> PrintTo( out, 1, "\n", (1,2,3,4)(5,6), "\n" ); gap> CloseStream(out); gap> Print( str ); 1 (1,2,3,4)(5,6)
Input-output streams capture bidirectional communications between GAP and another process, either locally or (@as yet unimplemented@) remotely.
Such streams support the basic operations of both input and output streams. They should provide some buffering, allowing output data to be written to the stream, even when input data is waiting to be read, but the amount of this buffering is operating system dependent, and the user should take care not to get too far ahead in writing, or behind in reading, or deadlock may occur.
At present the only type of Input-Output streams that are implemented provide communication with a local child process, using a pseudo-tty.
Like other streams, write operations are blocking, read operations will block to get the first character, but not thereafter.
As far as possible, no translation is done on characters written to, or read from the stream, and no control characters have special effects, but the details of particular pseudo-tty implementations may effect this.
‣ IsInputOutputStream( obj ) | ( category ) |
IsInputOutputStream is the Category of Input-Output Streams; it returns true if the obj is an input-output stream and false otherwise.
‣ InputOutputLocalProcess( dir, executable, args ) | ( function ) |
starts up a slave process, whose executable file is executable, with "command line" arguments args in the directory dir. (Suitable choices for dir are DirectoryCurrent() or DirectoryTemporary() (see Section 9.3); DirectoryTemporary() may be a good choice when executable generates output files that it doesn't itself remove afterwards.) InputOutputLocalProcess returns an InputOutputStream object. Bytes written to this stream are received by the slave process as if typed at a terminal on standard input. Bytes written to standard output by the slave process can be read from the stream.
When the stream is closed, the signal SIGTERM is delivered to the child process, which is expected to exit.
gap> d := DirectoryCurrent(); dir("./") gap> f := Filename(DirectoriesSystemPrograms(), "rev"); "/usr/bin/rev" gap> s := InputOutputLocalProcess(d,f,[]); < input/output stream to rev > gap> WriteLine(s,"The cat sat on the mat"); true gap> Print(ReadLine(s)); tam eht no tas tac ehT gap> x := ListWithIdenticalEntries(10000,'x');; gap> ConvertToStringRep(x); gap> WriteLine(s,x); true gap> WriteByte(s,INT_CHAR('\n')); true gap> y := ReadAll(s);; gap> Length(y); 4095 gap> CloseStream(s); gap> s; < closed input/output stream to rev >
‣ ReadAllLine( iostream[, nofail][, IsAllLine] ) | ( operation ) |
For an input/output stream iostream ReadAllLine reads until a newline character if any input is found or returns fail if no input is found, i.e. if any input is found ReadAllLine is non-blocking.
If the argument nofail (which must be false or true) is provided and it is set to true then ReadAllLine will wait, if necessary, for input and never return fail.
If the argument IsAllLine (which must be a function that takes a string argument and returns either true or false) then it is used to determine what constitutes a whole line. The default behaviour is equivalent to passing the function
line -> 0 < Length(line) and line[Length(line)] = '\n'
for the IsAllLine argument. The purpose of the IsAllLine argument is to cater for the case where the input being read is from an external process that writes a "prompt" for data that does not terminate with a newline.
If the first argument is an input stream but not an input/output stream then ReadAllLine behaves as if ReadLine (10.3-4) was called with just the first argument and any additional arguments are ignored.
The following two commands create dummy streams which will consume all characters and never deliver one.
‣ InputTextNone( ) | ( function ) |
returns a dummy input text stream, which delivers no characters, i.e., it is always at end of stream. Its main use is for calls to Process (11.1-1) when the started program does not read anything.
‣ OutputTextNone( ) | ( function ) |
returns a dummy output stream, which discards all received characters. Its main use is for calls to Process (11.1-1) when the started program does not write anything.
This section describes a feature of the GAP kernel that can be used to handle pending streams somehow "in the background". This is currently not available on the Macintosh architecture and only on operating systems that have select.
Right before GAP reads a keypress from the keyboard it calls a little subroutine that can handle streams that are ready to be read or ready to be written. This means that GAP can handle these streams during user input on the command line. Note that this does not work when GAP is in the middle of some calculation.
This feature is used in the following way. One can install handler functions for reading or writing streams via InstallCharReadHookFunc (10.10-1). Handlers can be removed via UnInstallCharReadHookFunc (10.10-2)
Note that handler functions must not return anything and get one integer argument, which refers to an index in one of the following arrays (according to whether the function was installed for input, output or exceptions on the stream). Handler functions usually should not output anything on the standard output because this ruins the command line during command line editing.
‣ InstallCharReadHookFunc( stream, mode, func ) | ( function ) |
installs the function func as a handler function for the stream stream. The argument mode decides, for what operations on the stream this function is installed. mode must be a string, in which a letter r means "read", w means "write" and x means "exception", according to the select function call in the UNIX C-library (see man select and UNIXSelect (10.2-3)). More than one letter is allowed in mode. As described above the function is called in a situation when GAP is reading a character from the keyboard. Handler functions should not use much time to complete.
This functionality does not work on the Macintosh architecture and only works if the operating system has a select function.
‣ UnInstallCharReadHookFunc( stream, func ) | ( function ) |
uninstalls the function func as a handler function for the stream stream. All instances are deinstalled, regardless of the mode of operation (read, write, exception).
This functionality does not work on the Macintosh architecture and only works if the operating system has a select function.
In some situations it can be desirable to process data given in the form of a spreadsheet (such as Excel). GAP can do this using the CSV (comma separated values) format, which spreadsheet programs can usually read in or write out.
The first line of the spreadsheet is used as labels of record components, each subsequent line then corresponds to a record. Entries enclosed in double quotes are considered as strings and are permitted to contain the separation character (usually a comma).
‣ ReadCSV( filename[, nohead][, separator] ) | ( function ) |
This function reads in a spreadsheet, saved in CSV format (comma separated values) and returns its entries as a list of records. The entries of the first line of the spreadsheet are used to denote the names of the record components. Blanks will be translated into underscore characters. If the parameter nohead is given as true, instead the record components will be called fieldn. Each subsequent line will create one record. If given, separator is the character used to separate fields. Otherwise it defaults to a comma.
‣ PrintCSV( filename, list[, fields] ) | ( function ) |
This function prints a list of records as a spreadsheet in CSV format (which can be read in for example into Excel). The names of the record components will be printed as entries in the first line. If the argument fields is given only the record fields listed in this list will be printed and they will be printed in the same arrangement as given in this list. If the option noheader is set to true the line with the record field names will not be printed.
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