ghci-haskeline (was: Re: ANNOUNCE: GHC version 6.10.1 - EditLine / terminal incompatibility?)

[Christos Chryssochoidis]

Hello,

2008/11/21 John O'Donnell <jtod at dcs.gla.ac.uk>:
> Simon says...
>
>> Could we reduce GHC's surface area by just using haskeline and dumping
>> readline/editline support altogether?
>
> I'm in favor of doing this.  For portability and consistency, it's better
> to have just one version that is unencumbered by these license issues,
> as long as it works on the main platforms (including Macintosh - has that
> been tested?).

It works very well on my Mac. Both tab completion of quoted filenames
in Haskell expressions and of unicode identifiers works well. (It
doesn't complete non-latin file names, but I can live with that.)

I've also noticed that with haskeline one can type in ghci non-latin
characters, as was the case before, with readline, but not anymore
with editline.

Hope it helps

C.Chryssochoidis

> If ghc tries to support both readline and editline, along
> with haskeline, applications written in Haskell will have different
> behaviours
> depending on the combination (platform,line-editor).  Better just to
> simplify.
>
> John O'Donnell
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: glasgow-haskell-users-bounces at haskell.org on behalf of Simon
> Peyton-Jones
> Sent: Fri 2008-11-21 10:39
> To: Simon Marlow; Judah Jacobson
> Cc: glasgow-haskell-users at haskell.org
> Subject: RE: ghci-haskeline (was: Re: ANNOUNCE: GHC version 6.10.1 -
> EditLine / terminal incompatibility?)
>
> | > I've actually been experimenting with something similar:
> | >
> | > darcs get http://code.haskell.org/~judah/ghci-haskeline/
> ....
> | >
> | > Current benefits over the readline/editline versions:
> | > - Works on Windows
> |
> | I can attest to that.  Nice going Judah!
> |
> | $ cabal update
> | $ darcs get http://code.haskell.org/~judah/ghci-haskeline/
> | $ cd ghci-haskeline
> | $ cabal install
> |
> | and I have a GHCi on Windows that can do completion, history search, and
> | exits when I hit ^D.  That's made my day.
>
> If I had £1 for every email I've seen in the last decade about
> platform-related or license-related problems with readline and now editline,
> I'd be rich man.  Super rich.
>
> Could we reduce GHC's surface area by just using haskeline and dumping
> readline/editline support altogether? Yes that might reduce functionality
> slightly -- readline/editline are complicated for good reasons. But it's
> increase functionality in other ways (as Judah says), and by giving us one
> piece of software that we understand, and can distribute with GHC, it might
> remove a whole class of problems.
>
> Simon
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