Proposal: Add --with-libedit flag to the readline package

Yitzchak Gale gale at sefer.org
Sun Jan 13 05:00:55 EST 2008


Hi Judah,

Judah Jacobson wrote:
> By "they don't overlap" I meant that neither header (histedit.h vs.
> readline.h) imports the other and that they can be used independently.
>  But *both* headers are present on *all* distributions of editline,
> not just Apple's.  Implementing #2 is sufficient to getting editline
> working on all platforms.

OK, thanks, but it was me who was not clear.

You understand far better than I do how things
work at the C API level. I am just trying to point out,
as an end user, some additional benefits that your
proposed project would provide. And in fact, those
benefits are so great that they would far overshadow -
for me, at least, and perhaps for many others - the
benefits that originally motivated the project. So
perhaps you would want to take that into consideration
when setting priorities, though in the end of course
it's up to you.

I think the most important issue is to enable using
the Editline API in Haskell on all platforms. That
would plug a major hole in the usefulness of Haskell
as a language to anyone who is not fully committed
to the GPL license.

While providing partial Readline API emulation via
editline would indeed be helpful in some situations,
its value pales in comparison to the value of providing
the Editline API, in my opinion.

Anyway, great idea. Good luck with this. I am
looking forward hearing more.

Thanks,
Yitz


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