How to stop input inside iex

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)>

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

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

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)>

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

Another way to write it:

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

It appears erl and iex both block the user from issuing the EOF signal, which can usually be done with Ctrl+d.

However, if you use elixir then it works!

$ elixir --eval 'IO.write("> "); l = IO.read(:stdio, :line); IO.inspect(l)'
> :eof

At the prompt above, I gave Ctrl+d and it got :eof like expected. However, this doesn’t work in iex; I assume this is on purpose to avoid accidentally terminating the shell input loop.

Hope this helps other future searchers