RustyLine

Readline implementation in Rust that is based on Antirez' Linenoise

Supported Platforms

• Unix (tested on FreeBSD, Linux and macOS)
• Windows
  • cmd.exe
  • Powershell

Note:

• Powershell ISE is not supported, check issue #56
• Mintty (Cygwin/MinGW) is not supported
• Highlighting / Colors are not supported on Windows < Windows 10 except with ConEmu and ColorMode::Forced.

Example

use rustyline::error::ReadlineError;
use rustyline::Editor;

fn main() {
    // `()` can be used when no completer is required
    let mut rl = Editor::<()>::new();
    if rl.load_history("history.txt").is_err() {
        println!("No previous history.");
    }
    loop {
        let readline = rl.readline(">> ");
        match readline {
            Ok(line) => {
                rl.add_history_entry(line.as_str());
                println!("Line: {}", line);
            },
            Err(ReadlineError::Interrupted) => {
                println!("CTRL-C");
                break
            },
            Err(ReadlineError::Eof) => {
                println!("CTRL-D");
                break
            },
            Err(err) => {
                println!("Error: {:?}", err);
                break
            }
        }
    }
    rl.save_history("history.txt").unwrap();
}

crates.io

You can use this package in your project by adding the following to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
rustyline = "9.0.0"

Features

• Unicode (UTF-8) (linenoise supports only ASCII)
• Word completion (linenoise supports only line completion)
• Filename completion
• History search (Searching for Commands in the History)
• Kill ring (Killing Commands)
• Multi line support (line wrapping)
• Word commands
• Hints

Actions

For all modes:

Keystroke	Action
Home	Move cursor to the beginning of line
End	Move cursor to end of line
Left	Move cursor one character left
Right	Move cursor one character right
Ctrl-C	Interrupt/Cancel edition
Ctrl-D, Del	(if line is not empty) Delete character under cursor
Ctrl-D	(if line is empty) End of File
Ctrl-J, Ctrl-M, Enter	Finish the line entry
Ctrl-R	Reverse Search history (Ctrl-S forward, Ctrl-G cancel)
Ctrl-T	Transpose previous character with current character
Ctrl-U	Delete from start of line to cursor
Ctrl-V	Insert any special character without performing its associated action (#65)
Ctrl-W	Delete word leading up to cursor (using white space as a word boundary)
Ctrl-Y	Paste from Yank buffer
Ctrl-Z	Suspend (Unix only)
Ctrl-_	Undo

Emacs mode (default mode)

Keystroke	Action
Ctrl-A, Home	Move cursor to the beginning of line
Ctrl-B, Left	Move cursor one character left
Ctrl-E, End	Move cursor to end of line
Ctrl-F, Right	Move cursor one character right
Ctrl-H, Backspace	Delete character before cursor
Ctrl-I, Tab	Next completion
Ctrl-K	Delete from cursor to end of line
Ctrl-L	Clear screen
Ctrl-N, Down	Next match from history
Ctrl-P, Up	Previous match from history
Ctrl-X Ctrl-U	Undo
Ctrl-Y	Paste from Yank buffer (Meta-Y to paste next yank instead)
Meta-<	Move to first entry in history
Meta->	Move to last entry in history
Meta-B, Alt-Left	Move cursor to previous word
Meta-C	Capitalize the current word
Meta-D	Delete forwards one word
Meta-F, Alt-Right	Move cursor to next word
Meta-L	Lower-case the next word
Meta-T	Transpose words
Meta-U	Upper-case the next word
Meta-Y	See Ctrl-Y
Meta-Backspace	Kill from the start of the current word, or, if between words, to the start of the previous word
Meta-0, 1, ..., -	Specify the digit to the argument. – starts a negative argument.

Readline Emacs Editing Mode Cheat Sheet

vi command mode

Keystroke	Action
$, End	Move cursor to end of line
.	Redo the last text modification
;	Redo the last character finding command
,	Redo the last character finding command in opposite direction
0, Home	Move cursor to the beginning of line
^	Move to the first non-blank character of line
a	Insert after cursor
A	Insert at the end of line
b	Move one word or token left
B	Move one non-blank word left
c	Change text of a movement command
C	Change text to the end of line (equivalent to c$)
d	Delete text of a movement command
D, Ctrl-K	Delete to the end of the line
e	Move to the end of the current word
E	Move to the end of the current non-blank word
f	Move right to the next occurrence of char
F	Move left to the previous occurrence of char
h, Ctrl-H, Backspace	Move one character left
l, Space	Move one character right
Ctrl-L	Clear screen
i	Insert before cursor
I	Insert at the beginning of line
+, j, Ctrl-N	Move forward one command in history
-, k, Ctrl-P	Move backward one command in history
p	Insert the yanked text at the cursor (paste)
P	Insert the yanked text before the cursor
r	Replaces a single character under the cursor (without leaving command mode)
s	Delete a single character under the cursor and enter input mode
S	Change current line (equivalent to 0c$)
t	Move right to the next occurrence of char, then one char backward
T	Move left to the previous occurrence of char, then one char forward
u	Undo
w	Move one word or token right
W	Move one non-blank word right
x	Delete a single character under the cursor
X	Delete a character before the cursor
y	Yank a movement into buffer (copy)

vi insert mode

Keystroke	Action
Ctrl-H, Backspace	Delete character before cursor
Ctrl-I, Tab	Next completion
Esc	Switch to command mode

Readline vi Editing Mode Cheat Sheet

Terminal codes (ANSI/VT100)

Wine

$ cargo run --example example --target 'x86_64-pc-windows-gnu'
...
Error: Io(Error { repr: Os { code: 6, message: "Invalid handle." } })
$ wineconsole --backend=curses target/x86_64-pc-windows-gnu/debug/examples/example.exe
...

Terminal checks

$ # current settings of all terminal attributes:
$ stty -a
$ # key bindings:
$ bind -p
$ # print out a terminfo description:
$ infocmp

Similar projects

Library	Lang	OS	Term	Unicode	History	Completion	Keymap	Kill Ring	Undo	Colors	Hint/Auto suggest
go-prompt	Go	Ux/win	ANSI	Yes	Yes	any	Emacs/prog	No	No	Yes	Yes
Haskeline	Haskell	Ux/Win	Any	Yes	Yes	any	Emacs/vi/conf	Yes	Yes	?	?
linefeed	Rust	Ux/Win	Any		Yes	any	Emacs/conf	Yes	No	?	No
linenoise	C	Ux	ANSI	No	Yes	only line	Emacs	No	No	Ux	Yes
linenoise-ng	C	Ux/Win	ANSI	Yes	Yes	only line	Emacs	Yes	No	?	?
Liner	Rust	Ux	ANSI		No inc search	only word	Emacs/vi/prog	No	Yes	Ux	History based
prompt_toolkit	Python	Ux/Win	ANSI	Yes	Yes	any	Emacs/vi/conf	Yes	Yes	Ux/Win	Yes
rb-readline	Ruby	Ux/Win	ANSI	Yes	Yes	only word	Emacs/vi/conf	Yes	Yes	?	No
replxx	C/C++	Ux/Win	ANSI	Yes	Yes	only line	Emacs	Yes	No	Ux/Win	Yes
Rustyline	Rust	Ux/Win	ANSI	Yes	Yes	any	Emacs/vi/bind	Yes	Yes	Ux/Win 10+	Yes
termwiz	Rust	Ux/Win	Any	?	Yes	any	Emacs	No	No	Ux/Win	No

Multi line support

This is a very simple feature that simply causes lines that are longer than the current terminal width to be displayed on the next visual line instead of horizontally scrolling as more characters are typed. Currently this feature is always enabled and there is no configuration option to disable it.

This feature does not allow the end user to hit a special key sequence and enter a mode where hitting the return key will cause a literal newline to be added to the input buffer.

The way to achieve multi-line editing is to implement the Validator trait.