The GNU Readline Library (original) (raw)

The GNU Readline Library

The GNU Readline library provides a set of functions for use by applications that allow users to edit command lines as they are typed in. Both Emacs and vi editing modes are available. The Readline library includes additional functions to maintain a list of previously-entered command lines, to recall and perhaps reedit those lines, and perform csh-like history expansion on previous commands.

The history facilities are also placed into a separate library, the History library, as part of the build process. The History library may be used without Readline in applications which desire its capabilities.

Readline is free software, distributed under the terms of theGNU General Public License, version 3. This means that if you want to use Readline in a program that you release or distribute to anyone, the program must befree softwareand have aGPL-compatible license. If you would like advice on making your license GPL-compatible, contact licensing@gnu.org.

Current Status

The current version of readline isreadline-8.2. (GPG signature).

A downloadable tar file of the current version with all official patches applied is available from theGNU git repository.

A snapshot of the current development sources (generally updated monthly or more often) is also available from the GNU gitreadline devel branch.

See the file for more information.

See the file for a list of changes and new features in Readline-8.2.

Availability

The current version of readline may be retrieved fromftp.cwru.eduand from themaster GNU ftp siteand its many mirrors. This distribution file includes formatted copies of the readline documentation.

These files are signed with my GPG key.

Any patches for the current version are available fromCWRUandftp.gnu.org.

A downloadable tar file of the current version with all official patches applied is available from theGNU git repositoryand a snapshot of the current development sources (generally updated monthly or more often) is available from the GNUreadline git devel branch.

You can browse the full source treehere.

Previous Readline versions are available atftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/readline.

Distributions

Readline is shipped as a standard library on mostGNU/LinuxandFreeBSD systems. It's also part of theNetBSD packagescollection and theOpenBSD packagescollection.

The OpenPKG project makes source RPMs ofreadline-8.1available for a variety of Unix and Linux systems as abasepart of thecurrent release.

MacOS X users may obtain MacOS X packages for readline-8.1 fromMacPorts,Homebrew, orFink.

Solaris users can get precompiled versions of readline-7.0 from OpenCSWor theUnixpackages (subscription) site. Oracle ships readline-4.2 as a supported part of the Solaris 10companion CD and readline-8.1 as a supported part ofSolaris 11. The version of Solaris/Illumos distributed asOpenIndiana includes readline-6.3 as of September 2022.

AIX users can get sources and precompiled versions of readline-7.0 (as well as older readline releases) for various versions of AIX fromperzl.org. IBM makes readline-8.1 available for AIX 5L through AIX 7.2 as part of theAIX toolbox for [GNU/]Linux applications. They use RPM format; you can get RPM for AIX from there, too.

HP-UX users can get readline-8.1 packages and source code from theSoftware Porting and Archive Center for HP-UX. It's even available on Minix.

If you are running Windows, I recommend that you useCygwin, who currently shipreadline-8.1for x86 and x86_64, or, for a version that runs independently of Cygwin, see the mingw64-{i686,x86_64}-readline packages.

Microsoft offers itsWindows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)as an installable add-on for Windows 10 and Windows 11. It's basically a separate packaged version of the Linux kernel that runs as a Windows service, and you can build and install readline-8.2 within that environment.

Documentation

The documentation for the Readline and History libraries appears in the `doc' subdirectory. There are three texinfo files and two Unix-style manual pages describing the facilities available in the Readline and History libraries. The texinfo files include both user and programmer's manuals. The current manuals are:

Reporting Bugs

Bug reports for Readline should be sent tobug-readline@gnu.org, When reporting a bug, please include the following information:

The version number and release status of Readline (e.g., 4.2-release)
The machine and OS that it is running on
A list of the compilation flags or the contents of `config.h', if appropriate
a description of the bug
a recipe for recreating the bug reliably
a fix for the bug if you have one!

If you would like to contact the Readline maintainer directly, send mail to the bug-readline@gnu.orgmailing list. You may subscribe to the mailing list atlists.gnu.org. Archives of bug-readline dating from November, 2006 are available fromlists.gnu.org.

Since Readline is developed along withbash, thebug-bash@gnu.org mailing list (mirrored to the Usenet newsgroupgnu.bash.bug) often contains Readline bug reports and fixes.

Archives of bug-bash dating from December, 1999 are available fromlists.gnu.org. Google Groups has an archive ofgnu.bash.bug.

Other Resources

Some files from the current distribution may be helpful.

: a file describing Readline
: a complete Readline change history
: a file tersely listing the notable changes between the current and previous versions
: installation instructions <rl.c> is an example program that uses Readline to read a line of input from a user and echo it to the standard output, suitable for use by shell scripts.

Maintainer

I am the current Readline maintainer. Please send additions and corrections to this page tochet.ramey@case.edu.

Translations

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Chet Ramey <chet.ramey@case.edu>
Last updated: Tue Jan 9 11:01:47 EST 2024

The GNU Readline Library (original) (raw)