Rlwrap: A Readline Wrapper

github.com

22 points·jesprenj··7 comments

A great reminder that what one deems obvious (i.e. existence and utility of `rlwrap` to me) may not be obvious at all to others.

And while I'm here: maybe you are unaware of `nohup`, which makes a lot of software that really expects a terminal for IO just sit in the background and do its job.

(Indeed I have both `nohup` and `rlwrap` in the same mental category of CLI wrapper-helpers.)

I have been using it with Oracle SQLPlus to regain some sanity. I wish Oracle would develop a good CLI and make it available by default. For bonus points, release it to be relocatable and backward compatible with older versions.

As someone who likes to toy around with lots of REPLs, rlwrap has been an awesome too for my toolbelt.

An invaluable tool for languages like Common Lisp, Tcl, and others with REPLs that are missing a basic command editing experience (clear line, search history, etc.).

The description mentioned socat as a replacement. Does anyone know how? "man socat" examples only show using readline for sending TCP messages.

Something along the lines of `socat readline exec:<cmd>` should work, e.g., `socat readline exec:cat`.

I tend to prefer using rlwrap, though; socat has a tendency to mess up your terminal if you SIGINT it. rlwrap does its job extremely well, except for the parenthesis matching flash (which I find annoying, but can be disabled with a config option).

rlwrap is especially useful when sshing into a high latency remote box. If you can use mosh, it's even better.

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