Is XRP Code able to interrupt a running program in Shell?
When I have a short test program running inside the Shell panel, I tried Ctrl-c but I am NOT able to interrupt the program. In fact, I tried Ctrl-d, Ctrl-z, and Ctrl-pause, but none worked successfully to interrupt the program running in Shell. I had to press the reset button to stop the program. Is that normal? I am new to MicroPython firmware and its runtime environment. I expected it to listen for an interrupt key sequence to stop execution.
Did I miss something? Do I need to add some extra code in my program for it to respond to interrupt keystrokes?
Please advise. Thanks.
The short answer is use the STOP button in the upper right.
There are a few reasons why Ctrl-C may not work in the Shell. MicroPython has some cases where Ctrl-C doesn’t work, especially if you are not requesting input or there are timers involved. Also when we use bluetooth, we have to swap the stdIn & stdOut terminal to allow the bluetooth to be the new terminal. While MicroPython provides an API for this there seems to be a bug in MicroPython where Ctrl-C does not interrupt in the same way. When you press the STOP button we do the Ctrl-C first, and then we go through a sequence of work arounds until we get the process to stop. Including in bluetooth we may have to reset MicroPython, which causes the bluetooth connection to drop and reconnect in the background. Occasionally this may not work and you will see connection drop completely. We have been looking for workarounds for this as well, but as it doesn’t happen too often it has been lower on the priority list.
It is really important to us for schools that they don’t have to install any software and that everything works through the browser, as most schools don’t allow software to be installed on laptops and chromebooks. This means having more workarounds, but we hear from teachers all the time how much they appreciate it.
Hope this helps.
@Fgrossman Thank you for the explanation.
I understand the design trade-off now. I was using the Bluetooth connection when I tried to interrupt my test code in Shell. Yes, I greatly appreciate the Web-based interface of XRP Code because my school uses Chromebooks for students.