How to stop input inside iex

Questions / Help
1

How could I send an EOF/EOT inside an input in iex?

Say inside

iex> IO.read :all

Usually we do it by pressing ctrl+D on other shells, but that’s something else in Erlang.

If there isn’t a way, how could I stop the input in a way that I could access the data already entered?

2

You can use Ctrl + G to enter Job control mode, there you can interrupt the running job (e.g. with i 1) and connect to it back.

iex(5)>  IO.read :all
1111

User switch command
 --> j
   1* {erlang,apply,[#Fun<Elixir.IEx.CLI.1.121285560>,[]]}
 --> i 1
 --> c 1
{:error, :interrupted}
iex(6)>
3

Thanks!
But this way I do not get the input.

I hope there’s a way of transmitting EOT or EOF.

4

I’m unable to find any info on how to send EOF manually, so I’d guess that the next best thing is to use custom string to terminate the input.

defmodule A do
   def read(acc \\ "") do
     case IO.read(:stdio, :line) do
       "eof\n" -> acc
       line -> read(acc <> line)
     end
   end
end

iex(11)> A.read
1 line
2 line
eof
"1 line\n2 line\n"
iex(12)>
5

You can also just use IO.gets, if you’re only interested in the first line.

6

Another way to write it:

IO.stream(:stdio, :line) |> Stream.take_while(&(&1 != "EOF\n")) |> Enum.reduce("", &(&2 <> &1))