Applications/Readline

Application Details

• Description: Readline is a software library that provides line-editing and history capabilities for interactive programs with a command-line interface, such as Bash.
• Version: readline
• Module: readline/6.3 and readline/7.0
• Licence: GNU

Usage Examples

Module

[username@login01 ~]$ module add readline/7.0

Compilation

readline is a library for use either with a compiled binary that requires it, or it could be required at compilation time also.

The following code is in C and must be linked against the readline library by passing a -lreadline flag to the compiler:

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <readline/readline.h>
#include <readline/history.h>

int main()
{
    char* input, shell_prompt[100];

    // Configure readline to auto-complete paths when the tab key is hit.
    rl_bind_key('\t', rl_complete);

    for(;;) {
        // Create prompt string from user name and current working directory.
        snprintf(shell_prompt, sizeof(shell_prompt), "%s:%s $ ", getenv("USER"), getcwd(NULL, 1024));

        // Display prompt and read input (NB: input must be freed after use)...
        input = readline(shell_prompt);

        // Check for EOF.
        if (!input)
            break;

        // Add input to history.
        add_history(input);

        // Do stuff...

        // Free input.
        free(input);
    }
    return 0;
}

Further Information

• http://www.boost.org/

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