Heya, we have several packages implementing line-editing
capabilities. I know at least 3 of them: "cle", "ledit", and "rlwrap",
but there might be others. Some are implemented on top of GNU
readline, some are not (e.g. "ledit"), nevertheless they all seem to
offer a common interface "NAME command" that will run command equipped
with line editing capabilities.
Some packages benefit generically from line editing capabilities
without caring about the actual tool implementing it. My example is
"ocaml" which has an interactive top-level with no built-in line
editing capabilities, but there are others.
I hereby propose to introduce a new virtual package called
"readline-editor" [1] provided by all tools offering line editing
capabilities as a command wrapper. The implementation should be via
alternatives; as priorities I propose having higher priority for those
implemented on top of GNU readline, because apparently they are
superior to ledit (e.g., they share a persistent history).
If there are no objections I'll submit patches to the three mentioned
packages, and possibly to the other matching the category.
Comments?
Cheers.
[1] An apparently more natural name could have been "line editor", but
in the UNIX world it has been traditionally used to refer to
things like "ed", and can be misleading.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -<>- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è ..| . |. Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
sempre uno zaino ...........| ..: |.... Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime
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