CHANGES revision 47558
1This document details the changes between this version, readline-4.0,
2and the previous version, readline-2.2.
3
41.  Changes to Readline
5
6a.  The version number is now 4.0, to match the major and minor version
7    numbers on the shared readline and history libraries.  Future
8    releases will maintain the identical numbering.
9
10b.  Fixed a typo in the `make install' recipe that copied libreadline.a
11    to libhistory.old right after installing it.
12
13c.  The readline and history info files are now installed out of the source
14    directory if they are not found in the build directory.
15
16d.  The library no longer exports a function named `savestring' -- backwards
17    compatibility be damned.
18
19e.  There is no longer any #ifdef SHELL code in the source files.
20
21f.  Some changes were made to the key binding code to fix memory leaks and
22    better support Win32 systems.
23
24g.  Fixed a silly typo in the paren matching code -- it's microseconds, not
25    milliseconds.
26
27h.  The readline library should be compilable by C++ compilers.
28
29i.  The readline.h public header file now includes function prototypes for
30    all readline functions, and some changes were made to fix errors in the
31    source files uncovered by the use of prototypes.
32
33j.  The maximum numeric argument is now clamped at 1000000.
34
35k.  Fixes to rl_yank_last_arg to make it behave better.
36
37l.  Fixed a bug in the display code that caused core dumps if the prompt
38    string length exceeded 1024 characters.
39
40m.  The menu completion code was fixed to properly insert a single completion
41    if there is only one match.
42
43n.  A bug was fixed that caused the display code to improperly display tabs
44    after newlines.
45
46o.  A fix was made to the completion code in which a typo caused the wrong
47    value to be passed to the function that computed the longest common
48    prefix of the list of matches.
49
50p.  The completion code now checks the value of rl_filename_completion_desired,
51    which is set by application-supplied completion functions to indicate
52    that filename completion is being performed, to decide whether or not to
53    call an application-supplied `ignore completions' function.
54
55q.  Code was added to the history library to catch history substitutions
56    using `&' without a previous history substitution or search having been
57    performed.
58
59
602.  New Features in Readline
61
62a.  There is a new script, support/shobj-conf, to do system-specific shared
63    object and library configuration.  It generates variables for configure
64    to substitute into makefiles.  The README file provides a detailed
65    explanation of the shared library creation process.
66
67b.  Shared libraries and objects are now built in the `shlib' subdirectory.
68    There is a shlib/Makefile.in to control the build process.  `make shared'
69    from the top-level directory is still the right way to build shared
70    versions of the libraries.
71
72c.  rlconf.h is now installed, so applications can find out which features
73    have been compiled into the installed readline and history libraries.
74
75d.  rlstdc.h is now an installed header file.
76
77e.  Many changes to the signal handling:
78        o Readline now catches SIGQUIT and cleans up the tty before returning;
79        o A new variable, rl_catch_signals, is available to application writers 
80          to indicate to readline whether or not it should install its own
81          signal handlers for SIGINT, SIGTERM, SIGQUIT, SIGALRM, SIGTSTP,
82          SIGTTIN, and SIGTTOU;
83        o A new variable, rl_catch_sigwinch, is available to application
84          writers to indicate to readline whether or not it should install its
85          own signal handler for SIGWINCH, which will chain to the calling
86          applications's SIGWINCH handler, if one is installed;
87        o There is a new function, rl_free_line_state, for application signal
88          handlers to call to free up the state associated with the current
89          line after receiving a signal;
90        o There is a new function, rl_cleanup_after_signal, to clean up the
91          display and terminal state after receiving a signal;
92        o There is a new function, rl_reset_after_signal, to reinitialize the
93          terminal and display state after an application signal handler
94          returns and readline continues
95
96f.  There is a new function, rl_resize_terminal, to reset readline's idea of
97    the screen size after a SIGWINCH.
98
99g.  New public functions: rl_save_prompt and rl_restore_prompt.  These were
100    previously private functions with a `_' prefix.  These functions are
101    used when an application wants to write a message to the `message area'
102    with rl_message and have the prompt restored correctly when the message
103    is erased.
104
105h.  New function hook: rl_pre_input_hook, called just before readline starts
106    reading input, after initialization.
107
108i.  New function hook: rl_display_matches_hook, called when readline would
109    display the list of completion matches.  The new function
110    rl_display_match_list is what readline uses internally, and is available
111    for use by application functions called via this hook.
112
113j.  New bindable function, delete-char-or-list, like tcsh.
114
115k.  A new variable, rl_erase_empty_line, which, if set by an application using
116    readline, will cause readline to erase, prompt and all, lines on which the
117    only thing typed was a newline.
118
119l.  There is a new script, support/shlib-install, to install and uninstall
120    the shared readline and history libraries.
121
122m.  A new bindable variable, `isearch-terminators', which is a string
123    containing the set of characters that should terminate an incremental
124    search without being executed as a command.
125
126n.  A new bindable function, forward-backward-delete-char.
127
128-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
129This document details the changes between this version, readline-2.2,
130and the previous version, readline-2.1.
131
1321.  Changes to Readline
133
134a.  Added a missing `extern' to a declaration in readline.h that kept
135    readline from compiling cleanly on some systems.
136
137b.  The history file is now opened with mode 0600 when it is written for
138    better security.
139
140c.  Changes were made to the SIGWINCH handling code so that prompt redisplay
141    is done better.
142
143d.  ^G now interrupts incremental searches correctly.
144
145e.  A bug that caused a core dump when the set of characters to be quoted
146    when completing words was empty was fixed.
147
148f.  Fixed a problem in the readline test program rltest.c that caused a core
149    dump.
150
151g.  The code that handles parser directives in inputrc files now displays
152    more error messages.
153
154h.  The history expansion code was fixed so that the appearance of the
155    history comment character at the beginning of a word inhibits history
156    expansion for that word and the rest of the input line.
157
158i.  The code that prints completion listings now behaves better if one or
159    more of the filenames contains non-printable characters.
160
161j.  The time delay when showing matching parentheses is now 0.5 seconds.
162
163
1642.  New Features in Readline
165
166a.  There is now an option for `iterative' yank-last-arg handline, so a user
167    can keep entering `M-.', yanking the last argument of successive history
168    lines.
169
170b.  New variable, `print-completions-horizontally', which causes completion
171    matches to be displayed across the screen (like `ls -x') rather than up
172    and down the screen (like `ls').
173
174c.  New variable, `completion-ignore-case', which causes filename completion
175    and matching to be performed case-insensitively.
176
177d.  There is a new bindable command, `magic-space', which causes history
178    expansion to be performed on the current readline buffer and a space to
179    be inserted into the result.
180
181e.  There is a new bindable command, `menu-complete', which enables tcsh-like
182    menu completion (successive executions of menu-complete insert a single
183    completion match, cycling through the list of possible completions).
184
185f.  There is a new bindable command, `paste-from-clipboard', for use on Win32
186    systems, to insert the text from the Win32 clipboard into the editing
187    buffer.
188
189g.  The key sequence translation code now understands printf-style backslash
190    escape sequences, including \NNN octal escapes.  These escape sequences
191    may be used in key sequence definitions or macro values.
192
193h.  An `$include' inputrc file parser directive has been added.
194