I'm trying to create a simple input loop in Clojure. The idea is to read in a line of text like so:
> look
You see nothing, as this game hasn't actually been written.
The method I'm using to attempt this is below:
(defn get-input []
(print "> ")
(string/trim-newline (read-line)))
However, the input loop instead looks like this:
look
> You see nothing, as this game hasn't actually been written.
How would one go about getting the angle quote to print before user input rather than after it?
This is a buffering issue. "> " is only a small amount of text, and doesn't contain a newline (and one isn't automatically added since you aren't using println), so it gets stuck in the outstream buffer. You just need to do a flush after printing.
When I need a print/flush combo like this in multiple places, I usually create a little helper function to neaten things up:
(defn print-fl [& messages]
(apply print messages) ; Pass the strings to print to be printed
(flush)) ; Then flush the buffer manually so small strings don't get stuck
(defn get-input []
(print-fl "> ")
(string/trim-newline (read-line)))
(get-input)
> look
"look"