editline/README

README                                          -*-text-*-

This is a line editing library.  It can be linked into almost any program to provide
command-line editing and history.

It is call-compatible with the FSF readline library, but it is a fraction of the size
(and offers fewer features).  It does not use standard I/O.  It is distributed under
a "C News-like" copyright, see the file LICENSE for details.

Configuration is made by supplying different options to the GNU configure script.  In
the examples/ directory you can find a couple of small & slow shell implementations
used for testing.

Before finding out about the Debian version I was on the lookout for a really small
replacement for the GNU readline package. Not only was it large and GPL:ed (instead
of LGPL:ed), it also depends on libncurses, so the resulting size was a bit too much
for my embedded system.  I eventually stubmled upon the BSD libedit library, which
was sufficient for a while, even though it too depends on libncurses.  I searched my
soul and went back to where I, back in 1996, started out -- Minix.  And there it was,
a really small readline replacement!

In 2000 Jim Studt packaged libeditline for Debian[1], the exact origin of the Debian
code base is unclear, see the Sid package[2] for details. There were some notable
differences between that version and the upstream Minix sources, all of which have
now been merged here.

An explanation of the version numbering may be in order.  I didn't know about the
Debian version for quite some time, so I kept a different name for the package and a
different versioning scheme.  In June 2009, I decided to line up alongside Debian,
with the intent of merging the efforts.  Sorry for any confusion this might cause.

Enjoy,
	Joachim Nilsson <troglobit()vmlinux!org>

[1] - http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2000/05/msg00548.html
[2] - http://packages.debian.org/sid/libeditline0