When working with command-based programs there is always a lot of text parsing, sorting, ordering, etc… <a href="https://github.com/aeshell/aesh/blob/master/src/main/java/org/jboss/aesh/util/Parser.java">Parser</a> provide a method formatDisplayList to format lists in the same way it is sorted in Bash. Æsh use this method internally to sort completions and filenames/directories when redirecting. Several extensions also use it for displaying filenames/directories.

Another useful method is findWordClosestToCursor. This method will return the word closest to the cursor (from the left) and also merge words that are diveded by escaped spaces. Eg: the word foo\ bar and cursor is on the position after r, the method will return "foo\ bar". If the word didnt have escaped space, but "normal" space like: "foo bar" the same method would return "bar. <br/>

FileLister have one very useful method: listMatchingDirectories. Based on a text given as input in addition to the current working directory it will try to find every file/folder that match the given input. If no input is given it will list the current working directory.An example: given the input text: /var/log/s the method will add every file and folder starting with e in the /var/log directory to the Completion object given as parameter to the method. Note that this can be used oustide a complete operation too. Just fetch the possible files/directories with: CompletionOperation.getCompletionCandidates(). <br/>

Since Æsh is targeting ANSI terminals it also provide a API to easily generate ANSI codes to help the developer communicate with the terminal.