Unable to delete the text input

[ajay15283]

While using inquirer.Text or inquirer.shortcuts.text in any case the value typed is wrong unable to delete and retype the correct input

For eg:

[?] Provide the VM Size [example:Standard_B2s]: asdasdasdasd - Junk value entered , I need to delete and retype correct information, I know the "validation" can be an option but my question is when user realized he typed a wrong value and want to correct it

If there is already an option available to overcome this problem please let me know

OS : Linux
inquirer version 2.7.0
python: 3.6.13

[huhuang03]

same issue

[jonnieey]

Same issue but works with ctrl-h

[skokado]

I faced the same issue.
So I did the following debugging into inquirer.render.console._text.Text.process_input

Version info: inquirer==2.9.1

class Text(BaseConsoleRender):
    ...
    def process_input(self, pressed):
+       print("##", print(pressed))
        if pressed == key.CTRL_C:

• my_cli.py

import inquirer

questions = [
    inquirer.Text("name", message="What's your name?"),
]

answers = inquirer.prompt(questions)
print(answers)

And, the result is as follows:

$ python3 my_cli.py
[?] What's your name?: a    # <= Pressed "a"
## None
[?] What's your name?: ab   # <= Pressed "b"
## None
[?] What's your name?: abc  # <= Pressed "c"
## None
[?] What's your name?: abc  # <= Pressed Backspace
## None
[?] What's your name?: abc  # <= Pressed Backspace
## None
[?] What's your name?: abc  # <= Pressed Enter
## None

{'name': 'abc\x7f\x7f'}

I think, pressed argument in process_input() is not passing values properly.
This library is too complex for me to give a PR for a quick fix, but I hope it helps :)

[skokado]

Sorry, there was an error in the above debugging code.

class Text(BaseConsoleRender):
    ...
    def process_input(self, pressed):
-       print("##", print(pressed))
+       print()
+       print('##', pressed, type(pressed))
        if pressed == key.CTRL_C:

It is natural that print(... . print(pressed)) should result in None.
In any case, it looks like the Backspace key is not captured well.

[?] What's your name?:      # <= Pressed a
## a <class 'str'>
[?] What's your name?: a    # <= Pressed b
## b <class 'str'>
[?] What's your name?: ab   # <= Pressed c
## c <class 'str'>
[?] What's your name?: abc  # <= Pressed Backspace
##  <class 'str'>
[?] What's your name?: abc  # <= Pressed Backspace
##  <class 'str'>
[?] What's your name?: abc  # <= Pressed Enter
 <class 'str'>

{'name': 'abc\x7f\x7f'}

[alejandro-angulo]

I've also ran into this issue. I think the bug was introduced in 2.9.0 (I'm unable to reproduce this issue using 2.8.0).

[zahedul]

face the same issue. so I downgrade the version

[tim-hitchins-ekkosense]

This issue doesn't occur when installing directly from the github repo. Try

pip install git+https://github.com/magmax/python-inquirer@v2.9.1

and it will work. So I'm not sure what has been deployed to Pypi...

[eeriksp]

Installing directly from Github still produces the same issue. Tested on Ubuntu 21 with Python 3.10.

[shymmq]

I got the issue on v2.9.1, but not on v2.9.0 (both versions from PyPI).

[cleeistaken]

OSX 12.1
Python 3.9.5
Inquirer 2.8.0: backspace works as expected
Inquirer 2.9.0: backspace does not work
Inquirer 2.9.1: backspace does not work

[OskarZyg]

not working on pop os 22.04 / python 3.10 with inquirer 2.9.2 either!

this is literally the most basic thing the library is supposed to be able to do, yet still cant handle text??

[Subetov]

OSX 12.3.1
Python 3.9.12
Inquirer 2.9.2
The same issue =(
Backspace doesn't work.
I can't remove or edit "default" value.

[ian-grover]

The problem seems to be (at least on OSX 11.6.5) that backspace is interpreted as \x7f but CTRL+H is handled as \x08. For whatever reason, CTRL+H is captured and interpreted correctly but backspace just adds the escape character to the string. I think it will be related to readchar.key.BACKSPACE not recognising this other escape character.

A workaround which might be useful is to place this somewhere before using inquirer:

import sys, readchar
if sys.platform == "darwin":
		# change readchar key backspace
		readchar.key.BACKSPACE = '\x7F'

[OskarZyg]

Thanks, @ian-grover, that solution also works on Linux. Updated patch:

import sys, readchar

# fix inquirer
if any(x in sys.platform for x in ['darwin', 'linux']):
    # change readchar key backspace
    readchar.key.BACKSPACE = '\x7F'

I'll make a PR fixing this if I can.

[Cube707]

This is actually a problem with V3.0.5 of the underlying readchar libary. It accepted and shipped a bad PR with the latest Version. I provided a fix as magmax/python-readchar#76, but the maintainer is not responding... (I also put instructions on how to install that PR's version as a worksround)