Console application
A console application is a computer program without the GUI ( Graphical User Interface , GUI), which is controlled purely text-based commands. The opposite is pure GUI applications that are generally designed for a pointing device such as a mouse .
Interactive console applications
Interactive console applications offer the user a command line or a character-oriented user interface ( Text User Interface , TUI) for operation. Examples of such applications are the editor Vim , the development environment Turbo Pascal or the word processor WordStar .
Command line programs
Command line programs can be controlled with a purely text-based interface such as a text terminal , the command line interpreter of some operating systems ( Unix , DOS etc.) or the text-based interface of some operating systems with a graphical user interface such as the Win32 command prompt from Microsoft Windows . In this case, the user typically only interacts with the application via keyboard and screen . The programs are controlled at the same time as the program is called using command line parameters. Well-known programs are the text search program grep and the GNU Compiler Collection .
In the following example, the grep program searches the text file telefonliste.txt for the character string Schmid
grep Schmid telefonliste.txt
and outputs the result on the console:
Schmid, Carola, Geschäftsleitung, -435 Schmidt, Eberhard, Vertrieb, -479
Alternatively, command line programs can also be controlled via a separate GUI application. This GUI then enables intuitive graphic control with pointing devices and then creates a command line in the background and transfers it to the actual program.
advantages
The programs are
- faster, leaner and require less memory
- clearer and easier to maintain
- more portable - GUI programming works differently on each operating system. If the GUI and the main program are separated, the main program can often be compiled for another system without profound changes. Only a small GUI has to be created from scratch for each platform. This can then also be better tailored to the characteristics of the respective platform.
- more versatile - the function of a console program can often be combined with other programs - also with GUI programs - by piping ; Input and output from command line programs can be routed to and from files using input / output redirection ( batch operation ).
history
With the advancement of GUI application development in terms of speed and ease of use, the use of console applications by end users has faded, but not died out. Many operating systems use command line programs internally. Many organizations also use console applications in key functions of their computing.