INSTALL perl Makefile.PL; make; make test; make install; Do 'make install' as root if installing into root-protected directories Description Flexible shell framework which encourages using loadable libraries of functions. Features - Loading/unloading shell components at runtime. - Flexible framework for using shell features via plugins. You can even set up a bare minimum shell needing no external modules! Currently plugins exist for dumping data,readline support,reading shell configurations and viewing shell output. - Commands and options can be aliased for minimal typing at the commandline. - Commands can have help and usage defined. - Commands can have user-defined argument types. One defines argument types by subroutines or tests that they should pass. These tests are then applied to a command's defined argument(s). With defined argument types, one can also define autocompletion routines for a command's arguments. - Options can modify variables. Since variables exist for almost every aspect of the shell, options can change many core shell functions. A handy example is 'parsecmd' which names the current parse subroutine for the current line. Changing this var would change how the input after the options is parsed. - Options can have different behaviors defined including the ability to invoke subroutines when called or to maintain a value for a specified amount of iterations. - Default options include 'menu' which numbers output and allows the next command to reference them by number. - Page output with preferred pager. - Multiline mode. - Comes with a decent default library,Fry::Lib::Default, to dump,list or unload any shell component, run system commands,evaluate perl statements and execute methods of autoloaded libraries. FAQ What are some good uses for this module? - Making a shell around different modules by loading libraries. WWW::Mechanize and DBI modules come to mind. - An organizer of small scripts: If you start amassing several scripts around a common module or theme, put them in the same library to see what common features they have in order to modularize them. You can still call any of them from the commandline since a fry-shell script takes a command and its arguments as initial arguments. - A tool for doing repetitive,tedious tasks easily. With the menu option, it's easy to alias several often-used arguments to numbers and perform commands on the numbers more easily. What this shell is not for? Not a replacement for your shell. This is more like a handy shell I keep open in one of my terminal tabs to be used when needed. Look to other well developed perl shells like Zoidberg and Psh to replace your shell. License Perl's Have fun!