| 1 | This document details the changes between this version, readline-4.0, |
| 2 | and the previous version, readline-2.2. |
| 3 | |
| 4 | 1. Changes to Readline |
| 5 | |
| 6 | a. The version number is now 4.0, to match the major and minor version |
| 7 | numbers on the shared readline and history libraries. Future |
| 8 | releases will maintain the identical numbering. |
| 9 | |
| 10 | b. Fixed a typo in the `make install' recipe that copied libreadline.a |
| 11 | to libhistory.old right after installing it. |
| 12 | |
| 13 | c. The readline and history info files are now installed out of the source |
| 14 | directory if they are not found in the build directory. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | d. The library no longer exports a function named `savestring' -- backwards |
| 17 | compatibility be damned. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | e. There is no longer any #ifdef SHELL code in the source files. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | f. Some changes were made to the key binding code to fix memory leaks and |
| 22 | better support Win32 systems. |
| 23 | |
| 24 | g. Fixed a silly typo in the paren matching code -- it's microseconds, not |
| 25 | milliseconds. |
| 26 | |
| 27 | h. The readline library should be compilable by C++ compilers. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | i. The readline.h public header file now includes function prototypes for |
| 30 | all readline functions, and some changes were made to fix errors in the |
| 31 | source files uncovered by the use of prototypes. |
| 32 | |
| 33 | j. The maximum numeric argument is now clamped at 1000000. |
| 34 | |
| 35 | k. Fixes to rl_yank_last_arg to make it behave better. |
| 36 | |
| 37 | l. Fixed a bug in the display code that caused core dumps if the prompt |
| 38 | string length exceeded 1024 characters. |
| 39 | |
| 40 | m. The menu completion code was fixed to properly insert a single completion |
| 41 | if there is only one match. |
| 42 | |
| 43 | n. A bug was fixed that caused the display code to improperly display tabs |
| 44 | after newlines. |
| 45 | |
| 46 | o. A fix was made to the completion code in which a typo caused the wrong |
| 47 | value to be passed to the function that computed the longest common |
| 48 | prefix of the list of matches. |
| 49 | |
| 50 | p. The completion code now checks the value of rl_filename_completion_desired, |
| 51 | which is set by application-supplied completion functions to indicate |
| 52 | that filename completion is being performed, to decide whether or not to |
| 53 | call an application-supplied `ignore completions' function. |
| 54 | |
| 55 | q. Code was added to the history library to catch history substitutions |
| 56 | using `&' without a previous history substitution or search having been |
| 57 | performed. |
| 58 | |
| 59 | |
| 60 | 2. New Features in Readline |
| 61 | |
| 62 | a. There is a new script, support/shobj-conf, to do system-specific shared |
| 63 | object and library configuration. It generates variables for configure |
| 64 | to substitute into makefiles. The README file provides a detailed |
| 65 | explanation of the shared library creation process. |
| 66 | |
| 67 | b. Shared libraries and objects are now built in the `shlib' subdirectory. |
| 68 | There is a shlib/Makefile.in to control the build process. `make shared' |
| 69 | from the top-level directory is still the right way to build shared |
| 70 | versions of the libraries. |
| 71 | |
| 72 | c. rlconf.h is now installed, so applications can find out which features |
| 73 | have been compiled into the installed readline and history libraries. |
| 74 | |
| 75 | d. rlstdc.h is now an installed header file. |
| 76 | |
| 77 | e. Many changes to the signal handling: |
| 78 | o Readline now catches SIGQUIT and cleans up the tty before returning; |
| 79 | o A new variable, rl_catch_signals, is available to application writers |
| 80 | to indicate to readline whether or not it should install its own |
| 81 | signal handlers for SIGINT, SIGTERM, SIGQUIT, SIGALRM, SIGTSTP, |
| 82 | SIGTTIN, and SIGTTOU; |
| 83 | o A new variable, rl_catch_sigwinch, is available to application |
| 84 | writers to indicate to readline whether or not it should install its |
| 85 | own signal handler for SIGWINCH, which will chain to the calling |
| 86 | applications's SIGWINCH handler, if one is installed; |
| 87 | o There is a new function, rl_free_line_state, for application signal |
| 88 | handlers to call to free up the state associated with the current |
| 89 | line after receiving a signal; |
| 90 | o There is a new function, rl_cleanup_after_signal, to clean up the |
| 91 | display and terminal state after receiving a signal; |
| 92 | o There is a new function, rl_reset_after_signal, to reinitialize the |
| 93 | terminal and display state after an application signal handler |
| 94 | returns and readline continues |
| 95 | |
| 96 | f. There is a new function, rl_resize_terminal, to reset readline's idea of |
| 97 | the screen size after a SIGWINCH. |
| 98 | |
| 99 | g. New public functions: rl_save_prompt and rl_restore_prompt. These were |
| 100 | previously private functions with a `_' prefix. These functions are |
| 101 | used when an application wants to write a message to the `message area' |
| 102 | with rl_message and have the prompt restored correctly when the message |
| 103 | is erased. |
| 104 | |
| 105 | h. New function hook: rl_pre_input_hook, called just before readline starts |
| 106 | reading input, after initialization. |
| 107 | |
| 108 | i. New function hook: rl_display_matches_hook, called when readline would |
| 109 | display the list of completion matches. The new function |
| 110 | rl_display_match_list is what readline uses internally, and is available |
| 111 | for use by application functions called via this hook. |
| 112 | |
| 113 | j. New bindable function, delete-char-or-list, like tcsh. |
| 114 | |
| 115 | k. A new variable, rl_erase_empty_line, which, if set by an application using |
| 116 | readline, will cause readline to erase, prompt and all, lines on which the |
| 117 | only thing typed was a newline. |
| 118 | |
| 119 | l. There is a new script, support/shlib-install, to install and uninstall |
| 120 | the shared readline and history libraries. |
| 121 | |
| 122 | m. A new bindable variable, `isearch-terminators', which is a string |
| 123 | containing the set of characters that should terminate an incremental |
| 124 | search without being executed as a command. |
| 125 | |
| 126 | n. A new bindable function, forward-backward-delete-char. |
| 127 | |
| 128 | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| 129 | This document details the changes between this version, readline-2.2, |
| 130 | and the previous version, readline-2.1. |
| 131 | |
| 132 | 1. Changes to Readline |
| 133 | |
| 134 | a. Added a missing `extern' to a declaration in readline.h that kept |
| 135 | readline from compiling cleanly on some systems. |
| 136 | |
| 137 | b. The history file is now opened with mode 0600 when it is written for |
| 138 | better security. |
| 139 | |
| 140 | c. Changes were made to the SIGWINCH handling code so that prompt redisplay |
| 141 | is done better. |
| 142 | |
| 143 | d. ^G now interrupts incremental searches correctly. |
| 144 | |
| 145 | e. A bug that caused a core dump when the set of characters to be quoted |
| 146 | when completing words was empty was fixed. |
| 147 | |
| 148 | f. Fixed a problem in the readline test program rltest.c that caused a core |
| 149 | dump. |
| 150 | |
| 151 | g. The code that handles parser directives in inputrc files now displays |
| 152 | more error messages. |
| 153 | |
| 154 | h. The history expansion code was fixed so that the appearance of the |
| 155 | history comment character at the beginning of a word inhibits history |
| 156 | expansion for that word and the rest of the input line. |
| 157 | |
| 158 | i. The code that prints completion listings now behaves better if one or |
| 159 | more of the filenames contains non-printable characters. |
| 160 | |
| 161 | j. The time delay when showing matching parentheses is now 0.5 seconds. |
| 162 | |
| 163 | |
| 164 | 2. New Features in Readline |
| 165 | |
| 166 | a. There is now an option for `iterative' yank-last-arg handline, so a user |
| 167 | can keep entering `M-.', yanking the last argument of successive history |
| 168 | lines. |
| 169 | |
| 170 | b. New variable, `print-completions-horizontally', which causes completion |
| 171 | matches to be displayed across the screen (like `ls -x') rather than up |
| 172 | and down the screen (like `ls'). |
| 173 | |
| 174 | c. New variable, `completion-ignore-case', which causes filename completion |
| 175 | and matching to be performed case-insensitively. |
| 176 | |
| 177 | d. There is a new bindable command, `magic-space', which causes history |
| 178 | expansion to be performed on the current readline buffer and a space to |
| 179 | be inserted into the result. |
| 180 | |
| 181 | e. There is a new bindable command, `menu-complete', which enables tcsh-like |
| 182 | menu completion (successive executions of menu-complete insert a single |
| 183 | completion match, cycling through the list of possible completions). |
| 184 | |
| 185 | f. There is a new bindable command, `paste-from-clipboard', for use on Win32 |
| 186 | systems, to insert the text from the Win32 clipboard into the editing |
| 187 | buffer. |
| 188 | |
| 189 | g. The key sequence translation code now understands printf-style backslash |
| 190 | escape sequences, including \NNN octal escapes. These escape sequences |
| 191 | may be used in key sequence definitions or macro values. |
| 192 | |
| 193 | h. An `$include' inputrc file parser directive has been added. |