This document details the changes between this version, readline-4.2,
and the previous version, readline-4.1.
1. Changes to Readline
a. When setting the terminal attributes on systems using `struct termio',
readline waits for output to drain before changing the attributes.
b. A fix was made to the history word tokenization code to avoid attempts to
dereference a null pointer.
c. Readline now defaults rl_terminal_name to $TERM if the calling application
has left it unset, and tries to initialize with the resultant value.
d. Instead of calling (*rl_getc_function)() directly to get input in certain
places, readline now calls rl_read_key() consistently.
e. Fixed a bug in the completion code that allowed a backslash to quote a
single quote inside a single-quoted string.
f. rl_prompt is no longer assigned directly from the argument to readline(),
but uses memory allocated by readline. This allows constant strings to
be passed to readline without problems arising when the prompt processing
code wants to modify the string.
g. Fixed a bug that caused non-interactive history searches to return the
wrong line when performing multiple searches backward for the same string.
h. Many variables, function arguments, and function return values are now
declared `const' where appropriate, to improve behavior when linking with
C++ code.
i. The control character detection code now works better on systems where
`char' is unsigned by default.
j. The vi-mode numeric argument is now capped at 999999, just like emacs mode.
k. The Function, CPFunction, CPPFunction, and VFunction typedefs have been
replaced with a set of specific prototyped typedefs, though they are
still in the readline header files for backwards compatibility.
m. Nearly all of the (undocumented) internal global variables in the library
now have an _rl_ prefix -- there were a number that did not, like
screenheight, screenwidth, alphabetic, etc.
n. The ding() convenience function has been renamed to rl_ding(), though the
old function is still defined for backwards compatibility.
o. The completion convenience functions filename_completion_function,
username_completion_function, and completion_matches now have an rl_
prefix, though the old names are still defined for backwards compatibility.
p. The functions shared by readline and bash (linkage is satisfied from bash
when compiling with bash, and internally otherwise) now have an sh_ prefix.
q. Changed the shared library creation procedure on Linux and BSD/OS 4.x so
that the `soname' contains only the major version number rather than the
major and minor numbers.
r. Fixed a redisplay bug that occurred when the prompt spanned more than one
physical line and contained invisible characters.
s. Added a missing `includedir' variable to the Makefile.
t. When installing the shared libraries, make sure symbolic links are relative.
u. Added configure test so that it can set `${MAKE}' appropriately.
v. Fixed a bug in rl_forward that could cause the point to be set to before
the beginning of the line in vi mode.
w. Fixed a bug in the callback read-char interface to make it work when a
readline function pushes some input onto the input stream with
rl_execute_next (like the incremental search functions).
x. Fixed a file descriptor leak in the history file manipulation code that
was tripped when attempting to truncate a non-regular file (like
/dev/null).
y. Changes to make all of the exported readline functions declared in
readline.h have an rl_ prefix (rltty_set_default_bindings is now
rl_tty_set_default_bindings, crlf is now rl_crlf, etc.)
z. The formatted documentation included in the base readline distribution
is no longer removed on a `make distclean'.
aa. Some changes were made to avoid gcc warnings with -Wall.
bb. rl_get_keymap_by_name now finds keymaps case-insensitively, so
`set keymap EMACS' works.
cc. The history file writing and truncation functions now return a useful
status on error.
dd. Fixed a bug that could cause applications to dereference a NULL pointer
if a NULL second argument was passed to history_expand().
ee. If a hook function assigned to rl_event_hook sets rl_done to a non-zero
value, rl_read_key() now immediately returns '\n' (which is assumed to
be bound to accept-line).
2. New Features in Readline
a. The blink timeout for paren matching is now settable by applications,
via the rl_set_paren_blink_timeout() function.
b. _rl_executing_macro has been renamed to rl_executing_macro, which means
it's now part of the public interface.
c. Readline has a new variable, rl_readline_state, which is a bitmap that
encapsulates the current state of the library; intended for use by
callbacks and hook functions.
d. rlfe has a new -l option to log input and output (-a appends to logfile),
a new -n option to set the readline application name, and -v and -h
options for version and help information.
e. rlfe can now perform filename completion for the inferior process if the
OS has a /proc/<PID>/cwd that can be read with readlink(2) to get the
inferior's current working directory.
f. A new file, rltypedefs.h, contains the new typedefs for function pointers
and is installed by `make install'.
g. New application-callable function rl_set_prompt(const char *prompt):
expands its prompt string argument and sets rl_prompt to the result.
h. New application-callable function rl_set_screen_size(int rows, int cols):
public method for applications to set readline's idea of the screen
dimensions.
i. The history example program (examples/histexamp.c) is now built as one
of the examples.
j. The documentation has been updated to cover nearly all of the public
functions and variables declared in readline.h.
k. New function, rl_get_screen_size (int *rows, int *columns), returns
readline's idea of the screen dimensions.
l. The timeout in rl_gather_tyi (readline keyboard input polling function)
is now settable via a function (rl_set_keyboard_input_timeout()).
m. Renamed the max_input_history variable to history_max_entries; the old
variable is maintained for backwards compatibility.
n. The list of characters that separate words for the history tokenizer is
now settable with a variable: history_word_delimiters. The default
value is as before.
o. There is a new history.3 manual page documenting the history library.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This document details the changes between this version, readline-4.1,
and the previous version, readline-4.0.
1. Changes to Readline
a. Changed the HTML documents so that the table-of-contents is no longer
a separate file.
b. Changes to the shared object configuration for: Irix 5.x, Irix 6.x,
OSF/1.
c. The shared library major and minor versions are now constructed
automatically by configure and substituted into the makefiles.
d. It's now possible to install the shared libraries separately from the
static libraries.
e. The history library tries to truncate the history file only if it is a
regular file.
f. A bug that caused _rl_dispatch to address negative array indices on
systems with signed chars was fixed.
g. rl-yank-nth-arg now leaves the history position the same as when it was
called.
h. Changes to the completion code to handle MS-DOS drive-letter:pathname
filenames.
i. Completion is now case-insensitive by default on MS-DOS.
j. Fixes to the history file manipulation code for MS-DOS.
k. Readline attempts to bind the arrow keys to appropriate defaults on MS-DOS.
l. Some fixes were made to the redisplay code for better operation on MS-DOS.
m. The quoted-insert code will now insert tty special chars like ^C.
n. A bug was fixed that caused the display code to reference memory before
the start of the prompt string.
o. More support for __EMX__ (OS/2).
p. A bug was fixed in readline's signal handling that could cause infinite
recursion in signal handlers.
q. A bug was fixed that caused the point to be less than zero when rl_forward
was given a very large numeric argument.
r. The vi-mode code now gets characters via the application-settable value
of rl_getc_function rather than calling rl_getc directly.
s. The history file code now uses O_BINARY mode when reading and writing
the history file on cygwin32.
t. Fixed a bug in the redisplay code for lines with more than 256 line
breaks.
u. A bug was fixed which caused invisible character markers to not be
stripped from the prompt string if the terminal was in no-echo mode.
v. Readline no longer tries to get the variables it needs for redisplay
from the termcap entry if the calling application has specified its
own redisplay function. Readline treats the terminal as `dumb' in
this case.
w. Fixes to the SIGWINCH code so that a multiple-line prompt with escape
sequences is redrawn correctly.
x. Changes to the install and install-shared targets so that the libraries
and header files are installed separately.
2. New Features in Readline
a. A new Readline `user manual' is in doc/rluserman.texinfo.
b. Parentheses matching is now always compiled into readline, and enabled
or disabled when the value of the `blink-matching-paren' variable is
changed.
c. MS-DOS systems now use ~/_inputrc as the last-ditch inputrc filename.
d. MS-DOS systems now use ~/_history as the default history file.
e. history-search-{forward,backward} now leave the point at the end of the
line when the string to search for is empty, like
{reverse,forward}-search-history.
f. history-search-{forward,backward} now leave the last history line found
in the readline buffer if the second or subsequent search fails.
g. New function for use by applications: rl_on_new_line_with_prompt, used
when an application displays the prompt itself before calling readline().
h. New variable for use by applications: rl_already_prompted. An application
that displays the prompt itself before calling readline() must set this to
a non-zero value.
i. A new variable, rl_gnu_readline_p, always 1. The intent is that an
application can verify whether or not it is linked with the `real'
readline library or some substitute.
j. Per Bothner's `rlfe' (pronounced `Ralphie') readline front-end program
is included in the examples subdirectory, though it is not built
by default.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This document details the changes between this version, readline-4.0,
and the previous version, readline-2.2.
1. Changes to Readline
a. The version number is now 4.0, to match the major and minor version
numbers on the shared readline and history libraries. Future
releases will maintain the identical numbering.
b. Fixed a typo in the `make install' recipe that copied libreadline.a
to libhistory.old right after installing it.
c. The readline and history info files are now installed out of the source
directory if they are not found in the build directory.
d. The library no longer exports a function named `savestring' -- backwards
compatibility be damned.
e. There is no longer any #ifdef SHELL code in the source files.
f. Some changes were made to the key binding code to fix memory leaks and
better support Win32 systems.
g. Fixed a silly typo in the paren matching code -- it's microseconds, not
milliseconds.
h. The readline library should be compilable by C++ compilers.
i. The readline.h public header file now includes function prototypes for
all readline functions, and some changes were made to fix errors in the
source files uncovered by the use of prototypes.
j. The maximum numeric argument is now clamped at 1000000.
k. Fixes to rl_yank_last_arg to make it behave better.
l. Fixed a bug in the display code that caused core dumps if the prompt
string length exceeded 1024 characters.
m. The menu completion code was fixed to properly insert a single completion
if there is only one match.
n. A bug was fixed that caused the display code to improperly display tabs
after newlines.
o. A fix was made to the completion code in which a typo caused the wrong
value to be passed to the function that computed the longest common
prefix of the list of matches.
p. The completion code now checks the value of rl_filename_completion_desired,
which is set by application-supplied completion functions to indicate
that filename completion is being performed, to decide whether or not to
call an application-supplied `ignore completions' function.
q. Code was added to the history library to catch history substitutions
using `&' without a previous history substitution or search having been
performed.
2. New Features in Readline
a. There is a new script, support/shobj-conf, to do system-specific shared
object and library configuration. It generates variables for configure
to substitute into makefiles. The README file provides a detailed
explanation of the shared library creation process.
b. Shared libraries and objects are now built in the `shlib' subdirectory.
There is a shlib/Makefile.in to control the build process. `make shared'
from the top-level directory is still the right way to build shared
versions of the libraries.
c. rlconf.h is now installed, so applications can find out which features
have been compiled into the installed readline and history libraries.
d. rlstdc.h is now an installed header file.
e. Many changes to the signal handling:
o Readline now catches SIGQUIT and cleans up the tty before returning;
o A new variable, rl_catch_signals, is available to application writers
to indicate to readline whether or not it should install its own
signal handlers for SIGINT, SIGTERM, SIGQUIT, SIGALRM, SIGTSTP,
SIGTTIN, and SIGTTOU;
o A new variable, rl_catch_sigwinch, is available to application
writers to indicate to readline whether or not it should install its
own signal handler for SIGWINCH, which will chain to the calling
applications's SIGWINCH handler, if one is installed;
o There is a new function, rl_free_line_state, for application signal
handlers to call to free up the state associated with the current
line after receiving a signal;
o There is a new function, rl_cleanup_after_signal, to clean up the
display and terminal state after receiving a signal;
o There is a new function, rl_reset_after_signal, to reinitialize the
terminal and display state after an application signal handler
returns and readline continues
f. There is a new function, rl_resize_terminal, to reset readline's idea of
the screen size after a SIGWINCH.
g. New public functions: rl_save_prompt and rl_restore_prompt. These were
previously private functions with a `_' prefix. These functions are
used when an application wants to write a message to the `message area'
with rl_message and have the prompt restored correctly when the message
is erased.
h. New function hook: rl_pre_input_hook, called just before readline starts
reading input, after initialization.
i. New function hook: rl_display_matches_hook, called when readline would
display the list of completion matches. The new function
rl_display_match_list is what readline uses internally, and is available
for use by application functions called via this hook.
j. New bindable function, delete-char-or-list, like tcsh.
k. A new variable, rl_erase_empty_line, which, if set by an application using
readline, will cause readline to erase, prompt and all, lines on which the
only thing typed was a newline.
l. There is a new script, support/shlib-install, to install and uninstall
the shared readline and history libraries.
m. A new bindable variable, `isearch-terminators', which is a string
containing the set of characters that should terminate an incremental
search without being executed as a command.
n. A new bindable function, forward-backward-delete-char.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This document details the changes between this version, readline-2.2,
and the previous version, readline-2.1.
1. Changes to Readline
a. Added a missing `extern' to a declaration in readline.h that kept
readline from compiling cleanly on some systems.
b. The history file is now opened with mode 0600 when it is written for
better security.
c. Changes were made to the SIGWINCH handling code so that prompt redisplay
is done better.
d. ^G now interrupts incremental searches correctly.
e. A bug that caused a core dump when the set of characters to be quoted
when completing words was empty was fixed.
f. Fixed a problem in the readline test program rltest.c that caused a core
dump.
g. The code that handles parser directives in inputrc files now displays
more error messages.
h. The history expansion code was fixed so that the appearance of the
history comment character at the beginning of a word inhibits history
expansion for that word and the rest of the input line.
i. The code that prints completion listings now behaves better if one or
more of the filenames contains non-printable characters.
j. The time delay when showing matching parentheses is now 0.5 seconds.
2. New Features in Readline
a. There is now an option for `iterative' yank-last-arg handline, so a user
can keep entering `M-.', yanking the last argument of successive history
lines.
b. New variable, `print-completions-horizontally', which causes completion
matches to be displayed across the screen (like `ls -x') rather than up
and down the screen (like `ls').
c. New variable, `completion-ignore-case', which causes filename completion
and matching to be performed case-insensitively.
d. There is a new bindable command, `magic-space', which causes history
expansion to be performed on the current readline buffer and a space to
be inserted into the result.
e. There is a new bindable command, `menu-complete', which enables tcsh-like
menu completion (successive executions of menu-complete insert a single
completion match, cycling through the list of possible completions).
f. There is a new bindable command, `paste-from-clipboard', for use on Win32
systems, to insert the text from the Win32 clipboard into the editing
buffer.
g. The key sequence translation code now understands printf-style backslash
escape sequences, including \NNN octal escapes. These escape sequences
may be used in key sequence definitions or macro values.
h. An `$include' inputrc file parser directive has been added.