Class Readline

 try {
     Readline.load(ReadlineLibrary.GnuReadline);
 }
 catch (UnsatisfiedLinkError ignore_me) {
     System.err.println("couldn't load readline lib. Using simple stdin.");
 }

 Readline.initReadline("myapp");

 Runtime.getRuntime()                       // if your version supports
   .addShutdownHook(new Thread() {          // addShutdownHook (since 1.3)
      public void run() {
        Readline.cleanup();
      }
    });

 while (true) {
     try {
         line = Readline.readline("myprompt> ");
         if (line == null)
             System.out.println("no input");
         else
             processLine();
     } 
     catch (EOFException e) {
         break;
     } 
     catch (Exception e) {
         doSomething();
     }
 }
 Readline.cleanup();  // see note above about addShutdownHook

Add a line to the in-memory history.

Supporting implementations:

• GNU-Readline
• Editline
• Getline

Parameters: line The line to add to the history

Throws: UnsupportOperationException if underlying library doesn't support a history

Reset the readline library and with it, the terminal.

Supporting implementations:

• GNU-Readline
• Editline

Clear the history buffer.

Supporting implementations:

• GNU-Readline
• Editline

Query current completer function.

Returns: Current ReadlineCompleter object

Query current encoding of fallback BufferedReader.

Returns: current encoding

Get the history buffer in a supplied Collection.

Supporting implementations:

• GNU-Readline
• Editline

Parameters: collection where to store the history

Throws: UnsupportOperationException if underlying library doesn't support a history

Get the specified entry from the history buffer. History buffer entries are numbered from 0 through (getHistorySize() - 1), with the oldest entry at index 0.

Supporting implementations:

• GNU-Readline
• Editline

Parameters: i the index of the entry to return

Returns: the line at the specified index in the history buffer

Throws: ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException index out of range

Get the size, in elements (lines), of the history buffer.

Supporting implementations:

• GNU-Readline
• Editline

Returns: the number of lines in the history buffer

Query the current line buffer. This returns the current content of the internal line buffer. You might need this in a ReadlineCompleter implementation to access the full text given so far.

Supporting implementations:

• GNU-Readline
• Editline

Query behavior in case an unsupported method is called.

Returns: configuration flag

Query word break characters.

Supporting implementations:

• GNU-Readline
• Editline

Return if we have a terminal. This requires, that any of the native libraries have been loaded yet (so call Readline.load()) first, otherwise this will always return true.

Supporting implementations:

• GNU-Readline
• Editline

Initialize the GNU-Readline library. This will also set the application name, which can be used in the initialization files of Readline (usually /etc/inputrc and ~/.inputrc) to define application specific keys. See the file ReadlineTest.java int the test subdir of the distribution for an example.

Supporting implementations:

• GNU-Readline
• Editline
• Getline

Parameters: applicationName Name of application in initialization file

Load an implementing backing library. This method might throw an UnsatisfiedLinkError in case the native libary is not found in the library path. If you want to have portable program, just catch and ignore that error. JavaReadline will then just use the pure Java fallback solution.

Parameters: lib An object (constant) of type ReadlineLibrary

Throws: UnsatisfiedLinkError if the shared library could not be found. Add it to your LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

See Also: ReadlineLibrary

Parse argument string as if it had been read from `inputrc' file and perform key bindings and variable assignments found.

Supporting implementations:

• GNU-Readline

Parameters: line Simulated line from inputrc file

Returns: boolean False in case of error

Reads a history file into memory

Supporting implementations:

• GNU-Readline
• Editline

Parameters: filename Name of history file to read

Read keybindings and variable assignments from a file. This method is a wrapper to rl_read_init_file(char *filename). Throws IOException if something goes wrong.

Supporting implementations:

• GNU-Readline

Parameters: filename Name of file to read bindings from

Returns: void

Display a prompt on standard output and read a string from standard input. This method returns 'null', if there has been an empty input (user pressed just [RETURN]) and throws an EOFException on end-of-file (C-d). This versino of readline() automatically adds the line to the in-memory history; use the other version of readline() if you want explicit control over that feature.

Supporting implementations:

• GNU-Readline
• Editline
• Getline
• PureJava

Parameters: prompt Prompt to display

Returns: The string the user entered or 'null' if there was no input.

Throws: EOFException on end-of-file, i.e. CTRL-d input.

See Also: Readline Readline

Display a prompt on standard output and read a string from standard input. This method returns 'null', if there has been an empty input (user pressed just [RETURN]) and throws an EOFException on end-of-file (C-d).

Parameters: prompt Prompt to display addToHist true to add the line to the history automatically; false to refrain from adding the line to the history. (You can manually add the line to the history by calling addHistory().)

Returns: The string the user entered or 'null' if there was no input.

Throws: EOFException on end-of-file, i.e. CTRL-d input.

See Also: readline Readline

Set your completer implementation. Setting this to null will result in the default behaviour of readline which is filename completion.

Supporting implementations:

• GNU-Readline
• Editline

Parameters: rlc An object implementing the ReadlineCompleter interface

Set current encoding of fallback BufferedReader.

Parameters: encoding encoding to use

Configure behavior in case an unsupported method is called. If argument is true, unsupported methods throw an UnsupportedOperationException.

Parameters: flag configuration flag

Set word break characters.

Supporting implementations:

• GNU-Readline
• Editline

Parameters: wordBreakCharacters A string of word break characters

Writes a history file to disc

Supporting implementations:

• GNU-Readline
• Editline

Parameters: filename Name of history file to write