Console Prompts

A .NET library to take user input in a console with exception handling and fluent syntax.

Features

• User input queries with fluent syntax
• Support for strings, IParsable, including numbers, and booleans
• Input restrictions (e.g. numeric range, string length, path to an existing file)
• Invalid input handling
• Hints and styling

Usage

Use the Prompt class to create a query with one of the For methods, add restrictions to the query with fluent syntax and Display the query to the user.

int userAge = Prompt.For<int>("Your age").NoLessThan(1).Display();
const int drinkingAge = 21;

if (userAge >= drinkingAge)
{
	Console.WriteLine("You are of drinking age!");
}
else
{
	Console.WriteLine("Sorry, you can't have a drink.");
}

Advanced Use

Use the Prompter class to customize how prompts and hints are displayed.

Prompter prompter = new Prompter(autoSetupHints: false);

// Set up all hints to be displayed
prompter.SetHintHandlers(PromptHintHandlers.GetAllHandlers());

// Change format of prompts
prompter.PromptFormat = "[{1}] {0} := ";
prompter.HintSeparator = " & ";
prompter.InvalidInputFormat = "Not accepted: {0}";

// Example prompt
float x = prompter
	.PromptFor<float>("x")
	.AddTypeHint()
	.ForceFinite()
	.OfRange(-1, 1)
	.NotEqualTo(0)
	.Display();

Console.WriteLine($"f(x) = 60 + 10 * {x} = {60 + 10 * x}");

See Demo Project for a more full tutorial.

Installation

NuGet

The best way to add the library to your project is via NuGet package manager. Use the .NET CLI command:

dotnet add package Rephidock.ConsolePrompts

or the package browser in the IDE of your choice.