Skip to content

Commit

Permalink
Add note about libedit on OS X. Closes ipythongh-150.
Browse files Browse the repository at this point in the history
  • Loading branch information
fperez committed Sep 22, 2010
1 parent 0a1e36b commit 237f201
Showing 1 changed file with 15 additions and 7 deletions.
22 changes: 15 additions & 7 deletions docs/source/install/install.txt
Expand Up @@ -187,24 +187,32 @@ common situations where you won't have a working :mod:`readline` module:

* If you are running Windows, which doesn't have a :mod:`readline` module.


On OS X, the built-in Python doesn't not have :mod:`readline` because of
license issues. Starting with OS X 10.5 (Leopard), Apple's built-in Python has
a BSD-licensed not-quite-compatible readline replacement. As of IPython 0.9,
many of the issues related to the differences between readline and libedit have
been resolved. For many users, libedit may be sufficient.
many of the issues related to the differences between readline and libedit seem
to have been resolved. While you may find libedit sufficient, we have
occasional reports of bugs with it and several developers who use OS X as their
main environment consider libedit unacceptable for productive, regular use with
IPython.

Therefore, we *strongly* recommend that on OS X you get the full
:mod:`readline` module. We will *not* consider completion/history problems to
be bugs for IPython if you are using libedit.

Most users on OS X will want to get the full :mod:`readline` module. To get a
working :mod:`readline` module, just do (with :mod:`setuptools` installed):
To get a working :mod:`readline` module, just do (with :mod:`setuptools`
installed):

.. code-block:: bash

$ easy_install readline

.. note::

Other Python distributions on OS X (such as fink, MacPorts and the
official python.org binaries) already have readline installed so
you don't have to do this step.
Other Python distributions on OS X (such as fink, MacPorts and the official
python.org binaries) already have readline installed so you likely don't
have to do this step.

If needed, the readline egg can be build and installed from source (see the
wiki page at http://ipython.scipy.org/moin/InstallationOSXLeopard).
Expand Down

0 comments on commit 237f201

Please sign in to comment.