From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Feb 2 18:04:48 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A2E0D10656E3 for ; Mon, 2 Feb 2009 18:04:48 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from oz@nixil.net) Received: from nixil.net (nixil.net [161.58.222.1]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 10D188FC2C for ; Mon, 2 Feb 2009 18:04:47 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from oz@nixil.net) Received: from demigorgon.corp.verio.net (fw.oremut02.us.wh.verio.net [198.65.168.24]) (authenticated bits=0) by nixil.net (8.13.6.20060614/8.13.6) with ESMTP id n12HZYU3035192 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NOT); Mon, 2 Feb 2009 10:35:40 -0700 (MST) Message-ID: <49872EE5.9070205@nixil.net> Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 10:35:33 -0700 From: Phil Oleson User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.14 (X11/20080623) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Garrett Cooper References: <779523.80455.qm@web32706.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <20090131221236.GA27303@soaustin.net> <20090201090143.GA1429@lizard.fafoe.narf.at> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Greylist: Sender succeeded SMTP AUTH authentication, not delayed by milter-greylist-2.0.2 (nixil.net [161.58.222.1]); Mon, 02 Feb 2009 10:35:40 -0700 (MST) X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV version 0.94.2-exp, clamav-milter version 0.94.2-exp on nixil.net X-Virus-Status: Clean Cc: Stefan Farfeleder , current@freebsd.org, James Butler Subject: Re: Much ado about libedit [Re: Alternatives to gcc (was Re: gcc 4.3: when will it becomestandard compiler?)] X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:04:49 -0000 Garrett Cooper wrote: > On Feb 1, 2009, at 1:01 AM, Stefan Farfeleder wrote: > >> On Sun, Feb 01, 2009 at 12:55:20PM +1300, James Butler wrote: >>> 2009/2/1 Mark Linimon : >>>> On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 01:08:54PM -0800, Pedro F. Giffuni wrote: >>>>> The effort didn't go far enough. Why haven't we removed GNU readline ? >>>> >>>> Probably either because someone hasn't written a BSD-licensed one, or >>>> someone hasn't done the work to test-compile src and ports on all the >>>> appropriate architectures. >>> >>> This might be off topic, but NetBSD has (limited) readline >>> compatibility in their libedit (which FreeBSD has in ports I think) - >>> this also gives them tab-completion in /bin/sh :-) >> >> I once posted a patch which ports it to FreeBSD. It would need a lot of >> work to fix all ports though. > > libedit isn't feature complete with GNU readline and many things > will fail to compile with NetBSD's rip on readline. Believe me -- I > tried with python -_-... > Then again at least you can make GNU readline into a port for things > that need it (like Python's readline module). > And yes, we do already have libedit in the base source tree under > lib/libedit -- it's just extremely outdated (hence libreadline isn't > available after compiling libedit). > Cheers, > -Garrett Actually your a bit wrong here. I submitted a patch to current around 2005 to get libedit upgraded to the latest NetBSD version. The version in the FreeBSD 4.x tree was an ancient version that was incompatible with most programs that attempted to use it (ie.. ssh). Stefan Farfeleder was kind enough to port those patches into something usable in the base system. The 6.x tree contains those updates. This porting from NetBSD happens periodically as bugs and or an itch needing to be scratched happens to prompt it. As to why the readline compatibility shims are removed from the base libedit.. well I suspect that it's that way to prevent the readline in base and or ports from being ignored and misconfigured, AND those programs that can use libedit's native API are configured to use it and not readline. -Phil.