[IPython-dev] multiline history

[Fernando Perez]

On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 1:15 AM, Dave Hirschfeld
<dave.hirschfeld at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Sorry for the noise, missed the terminal part - multiline works fine in the
> QtConsole for me but I haven't tried the terminal.

No worries.  Indeed, just to clarify, all the above is about the
terminal console.  The qt console implements proper, full-blown
multiline editing, and is indeed the right environment for that.  What
we're talking about is a bit of a hack we use to give a *limited
measure* of multiline editing within the confines of what's possible
in a single-line environment like a pure terminal.  We do that by
cramming a multiline block into a single line with embedded \n
(newlines).

It kinda-sorta works, but is obviously no substitute for real multline
editing as provided by the qtconsole, the notebook, or a curses
environment such as bpython.  All of these have full 2-d control of
the cursor, which is what you really want to edit multiple lines of
text.

Cheers,

f