readline 2.5.1

Some platforms, such as Mac OS X, do not ship with GNU readline installed. The readline extension module in the standard library of Mac ‘system’ Python uses NetBSD’s editline (libedit) library instead, which is a readline replacement with a less restrictive software license.

As the alternatives to GNU readline do not have fully equivalent functionality, it is useful to add proper readline support to these platforms. This module achieves this by bundling the standard Python readline module with the GNU readline source code, which is compiled and statically linked to it. The end result is an egg which is simple to install, with no extra shared libraries required.

The 2.5.1 version of this module is intended for use on Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), which ships with Python 2.5.1. It is built against GNU readline 5.2 with the latest patches.

This module is completely unnecessary on Linux and other Unix systems with default readline support. If you are using Windows, which also ships without GNU readline, you might want to consider using the pyreadline module instead, which is a readline replacement written in pure Python that interacts with the Windows clipboard.