chat.c

chat.c - Chat Loop Delegator

chat.c provides an interactive chat loop that repeatedly reads input from stdin, delegates it to a shell command via pipe, and displays the command's output. Works as a small C library and CLI tool.

CLI

Examples

Basic delegation with single-line input:

./bin/x86_64/linux/chat cat

Multi-line input with end token:

./bin/x86_64/linux/chat -e END cat

Custom exit command:

./bin/x86_64/linux/chat -x q cat

Custom prompt and initial message:

./bin/x86_64/linux/chat -m 'chat ready' -p '>>> ' cat

Parameters

Parameter	Description
`<command>`	Shell command to execute with piped input
`-e <token>`	End token for multi-line input
`-x <text>`	Exit command (default: `exit`)
`-m <text>`	Initial message printed at start
`-p <text>`	Prompt text (default: `>` )
`-h`, `--help`	Show help and usage
`-v`, `--version`	Show version

Public API

#include "chat.h"

kc_chat_t *ctx = kc_chat_open();
char *output = NULL;

kc_chat_set_cmd(ctx, "cat");
kc_chat_exec(ctx, "hello world", &output);

printf("%s\n", output);  /* prints: hello world */
kc_chat_free(output);
kc_chat_close(ctx);

Lifecycle

kc_chat_open() - allocates and returns a new context owned by the caller.
kc_chat_set_cmd() - configures the shell command for delegation.
kc_chat_set_exit() - configures the exit command string.
kc_chat_exec() - pipes input to the configured command and captures output.
kc_chat_is_exit() - checks whether input matches the exit command.
kc_chat_free() - releases output strings allocated by the library.
kc_chat_close() - releases the context.

Build

Compiled artifacts are generated under bin/{arch}/{platform}/ for the host architecture running the build.

make clean && make

The host build emits:

bin/{arch}/{platform}/chat
bin/{arch}/{platform}/libchat.a
bin/{arch}/{platform}/libchat.so

Windows builds emit:

bin/{arch}/windows/chat.exe
bin/{arch}/windows/libchat.dll
bin/{arch}/windows/libchat.dll.a

Multiarch Builds

The project is prepared to build artifacts for multiple architectures under bin/{arch}/{platform}/. A plain make builds only the current host architecture, while the targets below build the full matrix or a specific target.

make all
make x86_64/linux
make x86_64/windows
make i686/linux
make i686/windows
make aarch64/linux
make aarch64/android
make armv7/linux
make armv7/android
make armv7hf/linux
make riscv64/linux
make powerpc64le/linux
make mips/linux
make mipsel/linux
make mips64el/linux
make s390x/linux
make loongarch64/linux

License

This project is distributed under the GNU General Public License version 3 (GPLv3).

Repo

GitHub: kaisarcode/chat.c