libedit ☆

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Description:
BSD-style licensed readline alternative

Type: Formula | Latest Version: 20260512-3.1@0 | Tracked Since: Nov 1, 2025

Links: Homepage | formulae.brew.sh

Category: Developer tools

Tags: library cli editing readline bsd

Install: brew install libedit

About:
libedit is a command-line editing library providing generic line editing, history, and tokenization functions. It serves as a BSD-licensed alternative to the GNU Readline library, offering similar capabilities for interactive command prompts without GPL restrictions. It is widely used by network daemons and command-line tools like SSH and Python to enhance user input experience.

Key Features:

BSD-style license (permissive)
Command-line editing and history
Tokenization and word completion
Vi and Emacs editing modes

Use Cases:

Embedding interactive command-line editing into applications
Building network daemons requiring user input without GPL dependencies

Alternatives:

readline – Feature-rich but GPL-licensed, which can be restrictive for some projects
linenoise – Minimalist and small, but lacks advanced features like tokenization

Version History

Detected	Version	Rev	Change	Commit
May 12, 2026 8:47pm	20260512-3.1	0	VERSION_BUMP	8f32ed3b
May 8, 2026 8:43pm	20260508-3.1	0	VERSION_BUMP	66c2ee31
Nov 1, 2025 4:48pm	20251016-3.1	1	VERSION_BUMP	f9f98a2e
Sep 10, 2024 8:19am	20240808-3.1	0	VERSION_BUMP	871ced62
Aug 11, 2024 8:28pm	20240808-3.1	0	VERSION_BUMP	c14d6bbb
Sep 13, 2023 1:46pm	20230828-3.1	0	VERSION_BUMP	6f0678f4
Sep 1, 2023 4:43am	20230828-3.1	0	VERSION_BUMP	c3dd9530