TextArea command line

Question

Hello,
I'm making a program that has a command line interface. I am trying to make this work in a TextArea, however this is not an easy task as it is for a TextField. I can not get the TextArea to get the command on the cursor line. The program should work like this in the TextArea.
TX_Cli> read address 90000 //(command to be stored in a string)
got read address 9000 command, sending.....
recieved packet address 90000 has A5A5FFFF
TX_Cli>
Is this even possible, I have tried using key listeners but they don't work since the enter (\n) is a valid character in a TextArea. Should I try and use some other method besides TextArea... I really want to use the TextArea or JTextArea since I am using this with other parts of my code right now.

Answer 1

. code. (i tried what the last guy posted but I
could not get it to work, by the way, thank you first
guy.)Arg. That's because I posted the wrong code. This is what you want
There is even sample code in the main method. This should fix your problem with delete/etc
The one I posted before can be useful if you want to make a textarea show System.out or err.
TextAreaReader
=============================
* Created on Jul 7, 2005 by @author Tom Jacobs
package tjacobs;
import java.awt.event.KeyEvent;
import java.awt.event.KeyListener;
import java.awt.event.TextEvent;
import java.awt.event.TextListener;
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.Reader;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JTextArea;
public class TextAreaReader extends Reader implements KeyListener {
     JTextArea mArea;
     Object mKeyLock = new Object();
     Object mLineLock = new Object();
     String mLastLine;
     int mLastKeyCode = 1;
     public TextAreaReader(JTextArea area) {
          super();
          mArea = area;
          mArea.addKeyListener(this);
     public void keyPressed(KeyEvent ke) {
          mLastKeyCode = ke.getKeyCode();
          synchronized(mKeyLock) {
               mKeyLock.notifyAll();
          if (ke.getKeyCode() == KeyEvent.VK_ENTER) {
               String txt = mArea.getText();
               int idx = txt.lastIndexOf('\n', mArea.getCaretPosition() - 1);
               mLastLine = txt.substring(idx != -1 ? idx : 0, mArea.getCaretPosition());//txt.length());
               synchronized(mLineLock) {
                    mLineLock.notifyAll();
     public void keyReleased(KeyEvent ke) {
     public void keyTyped(KeyEvent ke) {
     public int read(char[] arg0, int arg1, int arg2) throws IOException {
          throw new IOException("Not supported");
     public String readLine() {
          synchronized(mLineLock) {
               try {
                    mLineLock.wait();
               catch (InterruptedException ex) {
          return mLastLine;
     public int read() {
          synchronized(mKeyLock) {
               try {
                    mKeyLock.wait();
               catch (InterruptedException ex) {
          return mLastKeyCode;
     public void close() throws IOException {
          // TODO Auto-generated method stub
     public static void main(String args[]) {
          JFrame f = new JFrame("TextAreaInput Test");
          JTextArea area = new JTextArea();
          final TextAreaReader tar = new TextAreaReader(area);
          f.add(area);
          Runnable r1 = new Runnable() {
               public void run() {
                    while (true) {
                         int code = tar.read();
                         System.out.println("read: " + code);
          Runnable r2 = new Runnable() {
               public void run() {
                    while (true) {
                         String line = tar.readLine();
                         System.out.println("read line: " + line);
          Thread t1 = new Thread(r1);
          Thread t2 = new Thread(r2);
          t1.start();
          t2.start();
          f.setBounds(100, 100, 200, 200);
          f.setVisible(true);
}