XMonad.Util.Run

This modules provides several commands to run an external process. It is composed of functions formerly defined in XMonad.Util.Dmenu (by Spencer Janssen), XMonad.Util.Dzen (by [e-mail]) and XMonad.Util.RunInXTerm (by Andrea Rossato).

Usage

For an example usage of runInTerm see XMonad.Prompt.Ssh

For an example usage of runProcessWithInput see XMonad.Prompt.DirectoryPrompt, XMonad.Util.Dmenu, XMonad.Prompt.ShellPrompt, XMonad.Actions.WmiiActions, XMonad.Prompt.WorkspaceDir

For an example usage of runProcessWithInputAndWait see XMonad.Util.Dzen

runProcessWithInput :: MonadIO m => FilePath -> [String] -> String -> m String

Returns the output.

runProcessWithInputAndWait :: MonadIO m => FilePath -> [String] -> String -> Int -> m ()

Wait is in μ (microseconds)

safeSpawn :: MonadIO m => FilePath -> [String] -> m ()

safeSpawn bypasses spawn, because spawn passes strings to /bin/sh to be interpreted as shell commands. This is often what one wants, but in many cases the passed string will contain shell metacharacters which one does not want interpreted as such (URLs particularly often have shell metacharacters like '&' in them). In this case, it is more useful to specify a file or program to be run and a string to give it as an argument so as to bypass the shell and be certain the program will receive the string as you typed it.

Examples:

, ((modm, xK_Print), unsafeSpawn "import -window root $HOME/xwd-$(date +%s)$$.png")
, ((modm, xK_d    ), safeSpawn "firefox" [])

Note that the unsafeSpawn example must be unsafe and not safe because it makes use of shell interpretation by relying on $HOME and interpolation, whereas the safeSpawn example can be safe because Firefox doesn't need any arguments if it is just being started.

safeSpawnProg :: MonadIO m => FilePath -> m ()

Simplified safeSpawn; only takes a program (and no arguments):

, ((modm, xK_d    ), safeSpawnProg "firefox")

unsafeSpawn :: MonadIO m => String -> m ()

An alias for spawn; the name emphasizes that one is calling out to a Turing-complete interpreter which may do things one dislikes; for details, see safeSpawn.

runInTerm :: String -> String -> X ()

Open a terminal emulator. The terminal emulator is specified in the default configuration as xterm by default. It is then asked to pass the shell a command with certain options. This is unsafe in the sense of unsafeSpawn

safeRunInTerm :: String -> String -> X ()

Run a given program in the preferred terminal emulator; see runInTerm. This makes use of safeSpawn.

seconds :: Rational -> Int

Multiplies by ONE MILLION, for functions that take microseconds.

Use like:

(5.5 `seconds`)

In GHC 7 and later, you must either enable the PostfixOperators extension (by adding

{-# LANGUAGE PostfixOperators #-}

to the top of your file) or use seconds in prefix form:

seconds 5.5

spawnPipe :: MonadIO m => String -> m Handle

Launch an external application through the system shell and return a Handle to its standard input.

hPutStr :: Handle -> String -> IO ()

Computation hPutStr hdl s writes the string s to the file or channel managed by hdl.

This operation may fail with:

• isFullError if the device is full; or
• isPermissionError if another system resource limit would be exceeded.

hPutStrLn :: Handle -> String -> IO ()

The same as hPutStr, but adds a newline character.