Subject: ReadLine library available for public (in debugger too...)
From: [email-masked] (Ilya Zakharevich)
Date: 29 May 1995 01:01:10 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.announce,comp.lang.perl.misc,comp.lang.perl

The release 0.4 of Term/ReadLine is the first one widely
announced. Using it you can add readline support to your application
(and make it survive - hopefully - a transition to better interface).

This release contains several "features". The first one is patched
jfriedl's readline.pl (that can now use Term/ReadKey, if present, and
works under xterm, OS/2 text windows, and - probably - DOS).

The second feature is a documented "standartized" minimal interface to
any possible ReadLine package. The moment you install better
implementation of ReadLine it is available for all programs that use
this interface without any change.

The third one is a sample implementation of this interface for a
dumb terminal. You get only few advantages over <>, but it conforms to
the above interface. I would like it to be included in standard Perl
distribution. 

The fourth one is a thunking code between the above interface and
jfriedl readline.pl.

So the usage of the library should be the following one (suppose that
ReadLine.pm is in standard distribution):

1) You write your code conforming to minimal interface (it includes a
call to check for presence of other features).

2) It works on any perl installation (using dumb interface).

3) If a site installes a better readline, your script will continue to
work using this better readline.

The site below contains a debugger kit (among other goodies) that uses
this interface. Aside readline support, this kit also has some bugs
corrected and a better help and data-printing engine. (You should
first install debugger kit, then ReadLine).

Available: on file://ftp.math.ohio-state.edu/pub/users/ilya/perl

Enjoy,
Ilya