Readline

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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 facilites 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.

This library is used by several packages that you might want to install. Here are instructions to download it and install it in a couple of different scenarios.

Download the package

You should find the latest release linked in the project homepage. There is an archive with lots of older versions (besides the current one) in the GNU Readline archive.

The example here uses version 5.2 current as of August 2007.

mkdir -pv ${HOME}/soft
cd ${HOME}/soft
wget ftp://ftp.cwru.edu/pub/bash/readline-5.2.tar.gz
tar xvzf readline-5.2.tar.gz
cd readline-5.2

Choose an installation destination

If you use the Unix account setup you have already a ${RUN} environment variable set up (in .bashrc) and you install everything there.

If you install packages directly in your home directory (${HOME}), then type:

export RUN=${HOME}

If you install packages in other directory of your choice (e.g. packages directly under your home directory -${HOME}), then type:

export RUN=${HOME}/packages

(replace packages above by the directory name you want).

Note where you installed it, since you'll probably need to know this when you want to configure other packages to use Readline.

Configure, compile and install

./configure --prefix=${RUN}
make
make install