1This document details the changes between this version, readline-4.3,
2and the previous version, readline-4.2a.
3
41.  Changes to Readline
5
6a.  Fixed output of comment-begin character when listing variable values.
7
8b.  Added some default key bindings for common escape sequences produced by
9    HOME and END keys.
10
11c.  Fixed the mark handling code to be more emacs-compatible.
12
13d.  A bug was fixed in the code that prints possible completions to keep it
14    from printing empty strings in certain circumstances.
15
16e.  Change the key sequence printing code to print ESC as M\- if ESC is a
17    meta-prefix character -- it's easier for users to understand than \e.
18
19f.  Fixed unstifle_history() to return values that match the documentation.
20
21g.  Fixed the event loop (rl_event_hook) to handle the case where the input
22    file descriptor is invalidated.
23
24h.  Fixed the prompt display code to work better when the application has a
25    custom redisplay function.
26
27i.  Changes to make reading and writing the history file a little faster, and
28    to cope with huge history files without calling abort(3) from xmalloc.
29
30j.  The vi-mode `S' and `s' commands are now undone correctly.
31
32k.  Fixed a problem which caused the display to be messed up when the last
33    line of a multi-line prompt (possibly containing invisible characters)
34    was longer than the screen width.
35
362.  New Features in Readline
37
38a.  Support for key `subsequences':  allows, e.g., ESC and ESC-a to both
39    be bound to readline functions.  Now the arrow keys may be used in vi
40    insert mode.
41
42b.  When listing completions, and the number of lines displayed is more than
43    the screen length, readline uses an internal pager to display the results.
44    This is controlled by the `page-completions' variable (default on).
45
46c.  New code to handle editing and displaying multibyte characters.
47
48d.  The behavior introduced in bash-2.05a of deciding whether or not to
49    append a slash to a completed name that is a symlink to a directory has
50    been made optional, controlled by the `mark-symlinked-directories'
51    variable (default is the 2.05a behavior).
52
53e.  The `insert-comment' command now acts as a toggle if given a numeric
54    argument:  if the first characters on the line don't specify a
55    comment, insert one; if they do, delete the comment text
56
57f.  New application-settable completion variable:
58    rl_completion_mark_symlink_dirs, allows an application's completion
59    function to temporarily override the user's preference for appending
60    slashes to names which are symlinks to directories.
61
62g.  New function available to application completion functions:
63    rl_completion_mode, to tell how the completion function was invoked
64    and decide which argument to supply to rl_complete_internal (to list
65    completions, etc.).
66
67h.  Readline now has an overwrite mode, toggled by the `overwrite-mode'
68    bindable command, which could be bound to `Insert'.
69
70i.  New application-settable completion variable:
71    rl_completion_suppress_append, inhibits appending of
72    rl_completion_append_character to completed words.
73
74j.  New key bindings when reading an incremental search string:  ^W yanks
75    the currently-matched word out of the current line into the search
76    string; ^Y yanks the rest of the current line into the search string,
77    DEL or ^H deletes characters from the search string.
78
79-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
80This document details the changes between this version, readline-4.2a,
81and the previous version, readline-4.2.
82
831.  Changes to Readline
84
85a.  More `const' and type casting fixes.
86
87b.  Changed rl_message() to use vsnprintf(3) (if available) to fix buffer
88    overflow problems.
89
90c.  The completion code no longer appends a `/' or ` ' to a match when
91    completing a symbolic link that resolves to a directory name, unless
92    the match does not add anything to the word being completed.  This
93    means that a tab will complete the word up to the full name, but not
94    add anything, and a subsequent tab will add a slash.
95
96d.  Fixed a trivial typo that made the vi-mode `dT' command not work.
97
98e.  Fixed the tty code so that ^S and ^Q can be inserted with rl_quoted_insert.
99
100f.  Fixed the tty code so that ^V works more than once.
101
102g.  Changed the use of __P((...)) for function prototypes to PARAMS((...))
103    because the use of __P in typedefs conflicted g++ and glibc.
104
105h.  The completion code now attempts to do a better job of preserving the
106    case of the word the user typed if ignoring case in completions.
107
108i.  Readline defaults to not echoing the input and lets the terminal
109    initialization code enable echoing if there is a controlling terminal.
110
111j.  The key binding code now processes only two hex digits after a `\x'
112    escape sequence, and the documentation was changed to note that the
113    octal and hex escape sequences result in an eight-bit value rather
114    than strict ASCII.
115
116k.  Fixed a few places where negative array subscripts could have occurred.
117    
118l.  Fixed the vi-mode code to use a better method to determine the bounds of
119    the array used to hold the marks, and to avoid out-of-bounds references.
120    
121m.  Fixed the defines in chardefs.h to work better when chars are signed.
122    
123n.  Fixed configure.in to use the new names for bash autoconf macros.
124    
125o.  Readline no longer attempts to define its own versions of some ctype
126    macros if they are implemented as functions in libc but not as macros in
127    <ctype.h>.
128
129p.  Fixed a problem where rl_backward could possibly set point to before
130    the beginning of the line.
131
132q.  Fixed Makefile to not put -I/usr/include into CFLAGS, since it can cause
133    include file problems.
134
1352.  New Features in Readline
136
137a.  Added extern declaration for rl_get_termcap to readline.h, making it a
138    public function (it was always there, just not in readline.h).
139
140b.  New #defines in readline.h:  RL_READLINE_VERSION, currently 0x0402,
141    RL_VERSION_MAJOR, currently 4, and RL_VERSION_MINOR, currently 2.
142
143c.  New readline variable:  rl_readline_version, mirrors RL_READLINE_VERSION.
144
145d.  New bindable boolean readline variable:  match-hidden-files.  Controls
146    completion of files beginning with a `.' (on Unix).  Enabled by default.
147
148e.  The history expansion code now allows any character to terminate a
149    `:first-' modifier, like csh.
150
151f.  The incremental search code remembers the last search string and uses
152    it if ^R^R is typed without a search string.
153
154h.  New bindable variable `history-preserve-point'.  If set, the history
155    code attempts to place the user at the same location on each history
156    line retrived with previous-history or next-history.
157
158-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
159This document details the changes between this version, readline-4.2,
160and the previous version, readline-4.1.
161
1621.  Changes to Readline
163
164a.  When setting the terminal attributes on systems using `struct termio',
165    readline waits for output to drain before changing the attributes.
166
167b.  A fix was made to the history word tokenization code to avoid attempts to
168    dereference a null pointer.
169
170c.  Readline now defaults rl_terminal_name to $TERM if the calling application
171    has left it unset, and tries to initialize with the resultant value.
172
173d.  Instead of calling (*rl_getc_function)() directly to get input in certain
174    places, readline now calls rl_read_key() consistently.
175
176e.  Fixed a bug in the completion code that allowed a backslash to quote a
177    single quote inside a single-quoted string.
178
179f.  rl_prompt is no longer assigned directly from the argument to readline(),
180    but uses memory allocated by readline.  This allows constant strings to
181    be passed to readline without problems arising when the prompt processing
182    code wants to modify the string.
183
184g.  Fixed a bug that caused non-interactive history searches to return the
185    wrong line when performing multiple searches backward for the same string.
186
187h.  Many variables, function arguments, and function return values are now
188    declared `const' where appropriate, to improve behavior when linking with
189    C++ code.
190
191i.  The control character detection code now works better on systems where
192    `char' is unsigned by default.
193
194j.  The vi-mode numeric argument is now capped at 999999, just like emacs mode.
195
196k.  The Function, CPFunction, CPPFunction, and VFunction typedefs have been
197    replaced with a set of specific prototyped typedefs, though they are
198    still in the readline header files for backwards compatibility.
199
200m.  Nearly all of the (undocumented) internal global variables in the library
201    now have an _rl_ prefix -- there were a number that did not, like
202    screenheight, screenwidth, alphabetic, etc.
203
204n.  The ding() convenience function has been renamed to rl_ding(), though the
205    old function is still defined for backwards compatibility.
206
207o.  The completion convenience functions filename_completion_function,
208    username_completion_function, and completion_matches now have an rl_
209    prefix, though the old names are still defined for backwards compatibility.
210
211p.  The functions shared by readline and bash (linkage is satisfied from bash
212    when compiling with bash, and internally otherwise) now have an sh_ prefix.
213
214q.  Changed the shared library creation procedure on Linux and BSD/OS 4.x so
215    that the `soname' contains only the major version number rather than the
216    major and minor numbers.
217
218r.  Fixed a redisplay bug that occurred when the prompt spanned more than one
219    physical line and contained invisible characters.
220
221s.  Added a missing `includedir' variable to the Makefile.
222
223t.  When installing the shared libraries, make sure symbolic links are relative.
224
225u.  Added configure test so that it can set `${MAKE}' appropriately.
226
227v.  Fixed a bug in rl_forward that could cause the point to be set to before
228    the beginning of the line in vi mode.
229
230w.  Fixed a bug in the callback read-char interface to make it work when a
231    readline function pushes some input onto the input stream with
232    rl_execute_next (like the incremental search functions).
233
234x.  Fixed a file descriptor leak in the history file manipulation code that
235    was tripped when attempting to truncate a non-regular file (like
236    /dev/null).
237
238y.  Changes to make all of the exported readline functions declared in
239    readline.h have an rl_ prefix (rltty_set_default_bindings is now
240    rl_tty_set_default_bindings, crlf is now rl_crlf, etc.)
241
242z.  The formatted documentation included in the base readline distribution
243    is no longer removed on a `make distclean'.
244
245aa. Some changes were made to avoid gcc warnings with -Wall.
246
247bb. rl_get_keymap_by_name now finds keymaps case-insensitively, so
248    `set keymap EMACS' works.
249
250cc. The history file writing and truncation functions now return a useful
251    status on error.
252
253dd. Fixed a bug that could cause applications to dereference a NULL pointer
254    if a NULL second argument was passed to history_expand().
255
256ee. If a hook function assigned to rl_event_hook sets rl_done to a non-zero
257    value, rl_read_key() now immediately returns '\n' (which is assumed to   
258    be bound to accept-line).
259
2602.  New Features in Readline
261
262a.  The blink timeout for paren matching is now settable by applications,
263    via the rl_set_paren_blink_timeout() function.
264
265b.  _rl_executing_macro has been renamed to rl_executing_macro, which means
266    it's now part of the public interface.
267
268c.  Readline has a new variable, rl_readline_state, which is a bitmap that
269    encapsulates the current state of the library; intended for use by
270    callbacks and hook functions.
271
272d.  rlfe has a new -l option to log input and output (-a appends to logfile),
273    a new -n option to set the readline application name, and -v and -h
274    options for version and help information.
275
276e.  rlfe can now perform filename completion for the inferior process if the
277    OS has a /proc/<PID>/cwd that can be read with readlink(2) to get the
278    inferior's current working directory.
279
280f.  A new file, rltypedefs.h, contains the new typedefs for function pointers
281    and is installed by `make install'.
282
283g.  New application-callable function rl_set_prompt(const char *prompt):
284    expands its prompt string argument and sets rl_prompt to the result.
285
286h.  New application-callable function rl_set_screen_size(int rows, int cols):
287    public method for applications to set readline's idea of the screen
288    dimensions.
289
290i.  The history example program (examples/histexamp.c) is now built as one
291    of the examples.
292
293j.  The documentation has been updated to cover nearly all of the public
294    functions and variables declared in readline.h.
295
296k.  New function, rl_get_screen_size (int *rows, int *columns), returns
297    readline's idea of the screen dimensions.
298
299l.  The timeout in rl_gather_tyi (readline keyboard input polling function)
300    is now settable via a function (rl_set_keyboard_input_timeout()).
301
302m.  Renamed the max_input_history variable to history_max_entries; the old
303    variable is maintained for backwards compatibility.
304
305n.  The list of characters that separate words for the history tokenizer is
306    now settable with a variable:  history_word_delimiters.  The default
307    value is as before.
308
309o.  There is a new history.3 manual page documenting the history library.
310
311-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
312This document details the changes between this version, readline-4.1,
313and the previous version, readline-4.0.
314
3151.  Changes to Readline
316
317a.  Changed the HTML documents so that the table-of-contents is no longer
318    a separate file.
319
320b.  Changes to the shared object configuration for: Irix 5.x, Irix 6.x,
321    OSF/1.
322
323c.  The shared library major and minor versions are now constructed
324    automatically by configure and substituted into the makefiles.
325
326d.  It's now possible to install the shared libraries separately from the
327    static libraries.
328
329e.  The history library tries to truncate the history file only if it is a
330    regular file.
331
332f.  A bug that caused _rl_dispatch to address negative array indices on
333    systems with signed chars was fixed.
334
335g.  rl-yank-nth-arg now leaves the history position the same as when it was
336    called.
337
338h.  Changes to the completion code to handle MS-DOS drive-letter:pathname
339    filenames.
340
341i.  Completion is now case-insensitive by default on MS-DOS.
342
343j.  Fixes to the history file manipulation code for MS-DOS.
344
345k.  Readline attempts to bind the arrow keys to appropriate defaults on MS-DOS.
346
347l.  Some fixes were made to the redisplay code for better operation on MS-DOS.
348
349m.  The quoted-insert code will now insert tty special chars like ^C.
350
351n.  A bug was fixed that caused the display code to reference memory before
352    the start of the prompt string.
353
354o.  More support for __EMX__ (OS/2).
355
356p.  A bug was fixed in readline's signal handling that could cause infinite
357    recursion in signal handlers.
358
359q.  A bug was fixed that caused the point to be less than zero when rl_forward
360    was given a very large numeric argument.
361
362r.  The vi-mode code now gets characters via the application-settable value
363    of rl_getc_function rather than calling rl_getc directly.
364
365s.  The history file code now uses O_BINARY mode when reading and writing
366    the history file on cygwin32.
367
368t.  Fixed a bug in the redisplay code for lines with more than 256 line
369    breaks.
370
371u.  A bug was fixed which caused invisible character markers to not be
372    stripped from the prompt string if the terminal was in no-echo mode.
373    
374v.  Readline no longer tries to get the variables it needs for redisplay 
375    from the termcap entry if the calling application has specified its
376    own redisplay function.  Readline treats the terminal as `dumb' in
377    this case.
378
379w.  Fixes to the SIGWINCH code so that a multiple-line prompt with escape
380    sequences is redrawn correctly.
381
382x.  Changes to the install and install-shared targets so that the libraries
383    and header files are installed separately.
384
3852.  New Features in Readline
386
387a.  A new Readline `user manual' is in doc/rluserman.texinfo.
388
389b.  Parentheses matching is now always compiled into readline, and enabled
390    or disabled when the value of the `blink-matching-paren' variable is
391    changed.
392
393c.  MS-DOS systems now use ~/_inputrc as the last-ditch inputrc filename.
394
395d.  MS-DOS systems now use ~/_history as the default history file.
396
397e.  history-search-{forward,backward} now leave the point at the end of the
398    line when the string to search for is empty, like
399    {reverse,forward}-search-history.
400
401f.  history-search-{forward,backward} now leave the last history line found
402    in the readline buffer if the second or subsequent search fails.
403
404g.  New function for use by applications:  rl_on_new_line_with_prompt, used
405    when an application displays the prompt itself before calling readline().
406
407h.  New variable for use by applications:  rl_already_prompted.  An application
408    that displays the prompt itself before calling readline() must set this to
409    a non-zero value.
410
411i.  A new variable, rl_gnu_readline_p, always 1.  The intent is that an
412    application can verify whether or not it is linked with the `real'
413    readline library or some substitute.
414
415j.  Per Bothner's `rlfe' (pronounced `Ralphie') readline front-end program
416    is included in the examples subdirectory, though it is not built
417    by default.
418
419-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
420This document details the changes between this version, readline-4.0,
421and the previous version, readline-2.2.
422
4231.  Changes to Readline
424
425a.  The version number is now 4.0, to match the major and minor version
426    numbers on the shared readline and history libraries.  Future
427    releases will maintain the identical numbering.
428
429b.  Fixed a typo in the `make install' recipe that copied libreadline.a
430    to libhistory.old right after installing it.
431
432c.  The readline and history info files are now installed out of the source
433    directory if they are not found in the build directory.
434
435d.  The library no longer exports a function named `savestring' -- backwards
436    compatibility be damned.
437
438e.  There is no longer any #ifdef SHELL code in the source files.
439
440f.  Some changes were made to the key binding code to fix memory leaks and
441    better support Win32 systems.
442
443g.  Fixed a silly typo in the paren matching code -- it's microseconds, not
444    milliseconds.
445
446h.  The readline library should be compilable by C++ compilers.
447
448i.  The readline.h public header file now includes function prototypes for
449    all readline functions, and some changes were made to fix errors in the
450    source files uncovered by the use of prototypes.
451
452j.  The maximum numeric argument is now clamped at 1000000.
453
454k.  Fixes to rl_yank_last_arg to make it behave better.
455
456l.  Fixed a bug in the display code that caused core dumps if the prompt
457    string length exceeded 1024 characters.
458
459m.  The menu completion code was fixed to properly insert a single completion
460    if there is only one match.
461
462n.  A bug was fixed that caused the display code to improperly display tabs
463    after newlines.
464
465o.  A fix was made to the completion code in which a typo caused the wrong
466    value to be passed to the function that computed the longest common
467    prefix of the list of matches.
468
469p.  The completion code now checks the value of rl_filename_completion_desired,
470    which is set by application-supplied completion functions to indicate
471    that filename completion is being performed, to decide whether or not to
472    call an application-supplied `ignore completions' function.
473
474q.  Code was added to the history library to catch history substitutions
475    using `&' without a previous history substitution or search having been
476    performed.
477
478
4792.  New Features in Readline
480
481a.  There is a new script, support/shobj-conf, to do system-specific shared
482    object and library configuration.  It generates variables for configure
483    to substitute into makefiles.  The README file provides a detailed
484    explanation of the shared library creation process.
485
486b.  Shared libraries and objects are now built in the `shlib' subdirectory.
487    There is a shlib/Makefile.in to control the build process.  `make shared'
488    from the top-level directory is still the right way to build shared
489    versions of the libraries.
490
491c.  rlconf.h is now installed, so applications can find out which features
492    have been compiled into the installed readline and history libraries.
493
494d.  rlstdc.h is now an installed header file.
495
496e.  Many changes to the signal handling:
497        o Readline now catches SIGQUIT and cleans up the tty before returning;
498        o A new variable, rl_catch_signals, is available to application writers 
499          to indicate to readline whether or not it should install its own
500          signal handlers for SIGINT, SIGTERM, SIGQUIT, SIGALRM, SIGTSTP,
501          SIGTTIN, and SIGTTOU;
502        o A new variable, rl_catch_sigwinch, is available to application
503          writers to indicate to readline whether or not it should install its
504          own signal handler for SIGWINCH, which will chain to the calling
505          applications's SIGWINCH handler, if one is installed;
506        o There is a new function, rl_free_line_state, for application signal
507          handlers to call to free up the state associated with the current
508          line after receiving a signal;
509        o There is a new function, rl_cleanup_after_signal, to clean up the
510          display and terminal state after receiving a signal;
511        o There is a new function, rl_reset_after_signal, to reinitialize the
512          terminal and display state after an application signal handler
513          returns and readline continues
514
515f.  There is a new function, rl_resize_terminal, to reset readline's idea of
516    the screen size after a SIGWINCH.
517
518g.  New public functions: rl_save_prompt and rl_restore_prompt.  These were
519    previously private functions with a `_' prefix.  These functions are
520    used when an application wants to write a message to the `message area'
521    with rl_message and have the prompt restored correctly when the message
522    is erased.
523
524h.  New function hook: rl_pre_input_hook, called just before readline starts
525    reading input, after initialization.
526
527i.  New function hook: rl_display_matches_hook, called when readline would
528    display the list of completion matches.  The new function
529    rl_display_match_list is what readline uses internally, and is available
530    for use by application functions called via this hook.
531
532j.  New bindable function, delete-char-or-list, like tcsh.
533
534k.  A new variable, rl_erase_empty_line, which, if set by an application using
535    readline, will cause readline to erase, prompt and all, lines on which the
536    only thing typed was a newline.
537
538l.  There is a new script, support/shlib-install, to install and uninstall
539    the shared readline and history libraries.
540
541m.  A new bindable variable, `isearch-terminators', which is a string
542    containing the set of characters that should terminate an incremental
543    search without being executed as a command.
544
545n.  A new bindable function, forward-backward-delete-char.
546
547-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
548This document details the changes between this version, readline-2.2,
549and the previous version, readline-2.1.
550
5511.  Changes to Readline
552
553a.  Added a missing `extern' to a declaration in readline.h that kept
554    readline from compiling cleanly on some systems.
555
556b.  The history file is now opened with mode 0600 when it is written for
557    better security.
558
559c.  Changes were made to the SIGWINCH handling code so that prompt redisplay
560    is done better.
561
562d.  ^G now interrupts incremental searches correctly.
563
564e.  A bug that caused a core dump when the set of characters to be quoted
565    when completing words was empty was fixed.
566
567f.  Fixed a problem in the readline test program rltest.c that caused a core
568    dump.
569
570g.  The code that handles parser directives in inputrc files now displays
571    more error messages.
572
573h.  The history expansion code was fixed so that the appearance of the
574    history comment character at the beginning of a word inhibits history
575    expansion for that word and the rest of the input line.
576
577i.  The code that prints completion listings now behaves better if one or
578    more of the filenames contains non-printable characters.
579
580j.  The time delay when showing matching parentheses is now 0.5 seconds.
581
582
5832.  New Features in Readline
584
585a.  There is now an option for `iterative' yank-last-arg handline, so a user
586    can keep entering `M-.', yanking the last argument of successive history
587    lines.
588
589b.  New variable, `print-completions-horizontally', which causes completion
590    matches to be displayed across the screen (like `ls -x') rather than up
591    and down the screen (like `ls').
592
593c.  New variable, `completion-ignore-case', which causes filename completion
594    and matching to be performed case-insensitively.
595
596d.  There is a new bindable command, `magic-space', which causes history
597    expansion to be performed on the current readline buffer and a space to
598    be inserted into the result.
599
600e.  There is a new bindable command, `menu-complete', which enables tcsh-like
601    menu completion (successive executions of menu-complete insert a single
602    completion match, cycling through the list of possible completions).
603
604f.  There is a new bindable command, `paste-from-clipboard', for use on Win32
605    systems, to insert the text from the Win32 clipboard into the editing
606    buffer.
607
608g.  The key sequence translation code now understands printf-style backslash
609    escape sequences, including \NNN octal escapes.  These escape sequences
610    may be used in key sequence definitions or macro values.
611
612h.  An `$include' inputrc file parser directive has been added.
613