Re: LYNX-DEV passing a url to a program

[Jim Dennis]

> I can the following command in the shell prompt:
> rpm -qip ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/contrib/i386/SOME_THING.rpm
> This command retrieves information about the file SOME_THING.rpm

        That is a feature of the rpm program (Red Hat Package Manager).

> How can if configure lynx so that it could pass the current URL 
> to the above command?


        I tried to read that as:

        "How can I configure Lynx so that it could pass the current
        URL to the 'rpm' command?"

        OH!  You want to create a "helper app" for .rpm files?
        Why didn't you just say so.

        Lynx (and all of the old browsers) supported a feature 
        called "helper apps."  This allows you to create a list of
        associations between filename patterns (mostly "extensions") 
        and local programs.  

        Implicitly .html (and .htm and .shtml) files are handled by 
        the browser directly.  Typically .au files are handled by a 
        sound player.  You might configure .tar and .tar.gz files to
        launch a copy of 'mc' (midnight commander -- a file browser
        which is primarily found on Linux systems but is popular on 
        others as well). 

        For that mattern you'd probably be better off configuring
        .rpm files to launch 'mc' since it knows how to "browse" 
        these files as easily as it can any directory tree.

        In any event I don't have time to look up the details or
        provide a tested example.  However I can point you in the
        right direction.  

        These "helper applications" are also known as MIME types. 
        MIME = multi-purpose mail extensions -- since this was 
        originally intended to be a way to include easier handling 
        of files attached/embedded in e-mail, to allow the creation 
        of multi-media e-mail with graphics, sound clips, animation, 
        and whatever.  Also owing to that origin the default name of 
        the client configuration file is the .mailcap file in your 
        Unix (Linux) home directory.  

        So, try 'man mailcap'

        (I con't know if Lynx uses this or not -- perhaps someone
        else on the list can answer that).

> That is:
>
> I would like to press a key in lynx to invoke  the rpm command and I 
> would like that lynx pass the current URL as a parameter to the command.

        Well, this isn't exactly what I've described.  For that
        I think you'd have to do one of two things:

                Patch Lynx (write your own modifications in C).

                Run Lynx under 'expect' and write an expect wrapper
                script that would catch the keystroke you want to 
                assign to this and run a TCL/expect procedure that
                did something like:

                        send Lynx the "=" command (to display 
                        info about the current Lynx page and link

                        parse that screen for the "Filename:"
                        information.

                        extract/isolate the URL listed thereunder
                        (using expect's regex and string handling
                        functions).

                        send Lynx a Ctrl-Z (suspend) command.

                        wait for a shell prompt

                        issue the rpm command -- and paste in the
                        value it isolated above.

        This psuedo code is pretty close to expect's own code
        (send, and waitfor are common expect commands, and binding
        keystrokes to functions is one of it's best features).

        I don't have time to write and debug this right now (its
        been months since I used expect/TCL) but it would probably
        only take about an hour -- the screen scanning and string
        isolation is the part I hate).

--
Jim Dennis  (800) 938-4078              address@hidden
Proprietor, Starshine Technical Services:  http://www.starshine.org
        PGP  1024/2ABF03B1 Jim Dennis <address@hidden>
        Key fingerprint =  2524E3FEF0922A84  A27BDEDB38EBB95A 
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