GNU Readline
Hacker ApprovedLine editing library in Developer tools
Free library that gives programs Emacs-style and vi editing keys, history and tab completion, so people use the same editing keys in many places.
Free library that gives programs Emacs-style and vi editing keys, history and tab completion, so people use the same editing keys in many places.
19 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 16
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 84%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 16 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 5.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Emacs keys work across many tools
“Emacs cursor movement keystrokes are quite widely supported elsewhere too which use GNU deadline or implement at least subset themselves.”
Comment from 18 Jun 2026 in “Emacs 31 Is Around the Corner: The Changes I'm Daily Driving” “Emacs cursor movement keystrokes are quite widely supported elsewhere too which use GNU deadline”
Comment from 18 Jun 2026 in “Emacs 31 Is Around the Corner: The Changes I'm Daily Driving” Default in many programs everywhere
“Learn emacs once and use ratpoison, readline and rlwrap everywhere.”
Comment from 30 Aug 2026 in “Omarchy: Any User Process Can Escalate to Root” “readline everywhere by default is fantastic”
Comment from 9 Oct 2026 in “Keyboard differences between Windows and Macs” Handles single-line editing well
“Editing the current line works because I brought in readline towards the end so I could support editing, tab completion, and history.”
Comment from 17 Mar 2026 in “Building a Shell” “The default readline is perfectly fine for single line commands”
Comment from 10 Jan 2026 in “You probably don't need Oh My Zsh” Few keys cover editing
“Editing commands is not hard with a few keys.”
Comment from 12 Aug 2026 in “A shell exclamation mark is not for yelling. Be lazy” “contains all the useful key combinations”
Comment from 26 Mar 2026 in “Shell Tricks That Make Life Easier (and Save Your Sanity)”
What people said
18 of the 19 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“I never liked readline and always avoid it where possible”
“readline everywhere by default is fantastic”
“It changes unconditional prev/next to prefix search.”
“Learn emacs once and use ratpoison, readline and rlwrap everywhere.”
“The more you use them the more places you will find where they are useful”
“Editing commands is not hard with a few keys.”
“Emacs cursor movement keystrokes are quite widely supported elsewhere too which use GNU deadline”
“but the vi support is also excellent.”
“Emacs cursor movement keystrokes are quite widely supported elsewhere too which use GNU deadline or implement at least subset themselves.”
“I just hated having to switch modes on my terminal”
“contains all the useful key combinations”
“I find it better to use readline for small changes and jumping to vim for bigger ones.”
“it's no comparison to readline's implementation”
“Editing the current line works because I brought in readline towards the end so I could support editing, tab completion, and history.”
“readline seems like the way to go.”
“The default readline is perfectly fine for single line commands”
“Readline can't be built for WebAssembly”
“Since forever, GNU readline programs and nano had identical bindings.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.