Readline-4.2 available for FTP

[Chet Ramey]

The first public release of the GNU Readline library, version
4.2, is now available for FTP with the URLs

ftp://ftp.cwru.edu/pub/bash/readline-4.2.tar.gz
ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/readline/readline-4.2.tar.gz

and from the usual GNU mirror sites.

This distribution is essentially a standalone version of the
readline library that appears in Bash-2.05 together with an
`autoconf' framework.  The documentation has been updated and
is current.  Postscript, DVI, and Info versions of the Readline
and History manuals are included.  A list of changes in this
release is appended to this announcement.

GNU Readline is a library which provides programs with an input
facility including command-line editing and history.  Editing
commands similar to both emacs and vi are included.  The GNU
History library, which provides facilities for managing a list of
previously-typed command lines and an interactive command line
recall facility similar to that provided by csh, is also present.
The history library is built as part of the readline library as well
as separately.

Diffs from readline-4.1 are available with the URLs

ftp://ftp.cwru.edu/pub/bash/readline-4.1-4.2.diff.gz
ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/readline/readline-4.1-4.2.diff.gz

The diffs should be applied using `patch -p1 patch-file' from within
a readline-4.1 source directory.

Please send readline bug reports to bug-readline@gnu.org.

+========== CHANGES ==========+
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.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
( ``Discere est Dolere'' -- chet)

Chet Ramey, CWRU    chet@po.CWRU.Edu    http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/