Baffled by readline module

[Weatherby,Gerard]

I would say, “No, readline is not the right tool.”

cmd.Cmd is: https://docs.python.org/3/library/cmd.html. I have a couple of cmd.Cmd modules, one of which I use daily and the other weekly.

From: Python-list <python-list-bounces+gweatherby=uchc.edu at python.org> on behalf of Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards at gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, March 9, 2023 at 2:29 PM
To: python-list at python.org <python-list at python.org>
Subject: Baffled by readline module
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In an interactive command-line Python program on Linux, I want to be
able to read a line at a time from stdin, providing command line
history and editing to the user. In C, I would use GNU readline to do
that.

Python has the readline module, which appears to be a wrapper for GNU
readline. However, I've read and re-read the documenation for that
module, but I'm completely baffled. There's all sorts of stuff about
history files, but I neither need nor want a history file. Likewise
tab-completion: don't want it.  All the examples not only involve
history files and tab-completion but they're somehow connected to the
interactive Python REPL, which is also completely off-base for my use
case.

Is the readline module not the right tool for an interactive Linux
command-line application that needs to provide command line recall and
editing to the user who's entering stuff on stdin from a tty?

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