Addition to readline module to get dictionary of keystrokes and commands

[MLModel]

BPO	8492
Nosy	@merwok, @MLModel, @stevendaprano, @asvetlov

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = None
created_at = <Date 2010-04-21.20:02:06.154>
labels = ['type-feature', 'library']
title = 'Addition to readline module to get dictionary of keystrokes and commands'
updated_at = <Date 2012-10-11.20:59:37.980>
user = 'https://github.com/MLModel'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2012-10-11.20:59:37.980>
actor = 'anand.jeyahar'
assignee = 'none'
closed = False
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['Library (Lib)']
creation = <Date 2010-04-21.20:02:06.154>
creator = 'MLModel'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 8492
keywords = []
message_count = 3.0
messages = ['103905', '172090', '172692']
nosy_count = 5.0
nosy_names = ['eric.araujo', 'MLModel', 'steven.daprano', 'asvetlov', 'anand.jeyahar']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = None
stage = None
status = 'open'
superseder = None
type = 'enhancement'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue8492'
versions = ['Python 3.4']

[MLModel]

Requesting a function to be added to the readline module that produces a dictionary of the current keystroke bindings Also, one to write it to a file in readline init file format. This would be a big help for people interested in customizing the behavior of readline inside Python.

[stevendaprano]

A question came up on Python-ideas about readline apparently missing a standard function. See:

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/2012-October/016329.html

For debugging issues with readline, it would be be very useful to be able to query the current set of bindings. This would also help people avoid accidentally over-writing existing bindings.

I suggest emulating the three bash commands:

bind -p # List functions and bindings in a form that can be reused as input.
bind -v # As above for variable names and values.
bind -s # As above for macros and values.

[anandjeyahar]

Here's what the original maintainer chet romney had to say about this functionality not being a part of readline, and should be implemented by the calling application. From Chet Ramey:
----------
The answer is that this is very similar to the operate-and-get-next
feature bash adds to the readline interface. I am not inclined to add this to
readline in its current form because it manipulates state managed by
the calling application (rl_startup_hook) and requires that state to be
kept between calls to readline(). It's a feature that should be provided
by the calling application -- it's implementation is not complicated.