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xmessage - display a message or query in a window (X-based /bin/echo)
xmessage [-buttons label1[:value1],label2[:value2],...] [options] -file filename
xmessage [-buttons label1[:value1],label2[:value2],...] [options] message ...
These are the command line options that
xmessage
understands.
This option will cause
xmessage
to create
one button for each comma-separated
button
argument.
The corresponding resource is
buttons. Each
button
consists of a label optionally followed by a colon and
an exit value. The label is the name of the Command button widget created
and will be the default text displayed to the user. Since this is the name
of the widget it may be used to change any of the resources associated with
that button. The exit value will be returned by
xmessage
if that button is selected. The default exit value is 100 plus the button
number. Buttons are numbered from the left starting with one. The default
string if no
-buttons
option is given is
okay:0.
Defines the button with a matching
label
to be the default. If not specified there is no default. The corresponding
resource is
defaultButton. Pressing Return anywhere in
the
xmessage
window will activate the default button. The
default button has a wider border than the others.
File to display. The corresponding resource is
file. A
filename
of `-'
reads from standard input. If this option is not supplied,
xmessage
will display all non-option arguments in the style of
echo. Either
-file
or a message on the command line
should be provided, but not both.
This will cause the program to print the label of the button
pressed to standard output. Equivalent to setting the
printValue
resource to TRUE. This is one way to get feedback as to which button
was pressed.
The xmessage program displays a window containing a message from the command line, a file, or standard input. Along the lower edge of the message is row of buttons; clicking the left mouse button on any of these buttons will cause xmessage to exit. Which button was pressed is returned in the exit status and, optionally, by writing the label of the button to standard output.
xmessage
is typically used by shell scripts to display
information to the user or to ask the user to make a choice.
Knowing the name and position in the hierarchy of each widget is useful when specifying resources for them. In the chart below, the class and name of each widget is given.
Xmessage (xmessage) Form form Label message Command (label1) Command (label2) . . .
xmessage
has a few top-level application resources
that allow customizations that are specific to
xmessage.
A String resource specifying the file to display.
A String resource specifying the buttons to display. See the
-buttons
command-line option.
A String resource specifying a default button by label.
A Boolean resource that determines whether or not the label
of the button pressed to exit the program is printed. The default is FALSE.
exit immediately with an exit status of
value
(default 0). This action can be used with translations to provide alternate
ways of exiting
xmessage.
exit immediately with the exit status specified by the default
button. If there is no default button, this action has no effect.
If it detects an error,
xmessage
returns 1, so this
value should not be used with a button.
Chris Peterson, MIT Project Athena Stephen Gildea, MIT X Consortium