The documentation of the readline module refers to readline initialization files, but does not give any information about their format or the available commands. I realize that this is a standard part of environments that support readline, not anything specific to Python, but as long as the module documentations mentions the init file it should give a link to documentation about it.

Can you suggest a specific link and a specific location where to add it?

On Aug 5, 2010, at 3:48 PM, Terry J. Reedy wrote:

> 
> Terry J. Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> added the comment:
> 
> Can you suggest a specific link and a specific location where to add it?

I would add a sentence to the first paragraph of the readline doc:

	Readline keybindings may be configured via an initialization file, typically .inputrc in your home directory; see 
http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/php/chet/readline/readline.html#SEC9 (or http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Readline-Init-File.html) for information about the format and allowable constructs of that file and the capabilities of the readline library in general.

I did a few quick tests and convinced myself that the module's C code's call to rl_initialize actually reads .inputrc (or the value of the environment variable INPUTRC if that is set).

> 
> ----------
> assignee: georg.brandl -> docs@python
> nosy: +docs@python, terry.reedy
> versions:  -Python 2.6
> 
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> <http://bugs.python.org/issue8491>
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