;;;;;
title: rlwrapping sbcl
tags: sbcl, lisp, utility
date: 2013-10-06 13:02
format: md
;;;;;

[SBCL](http://sbcl.org) is an excellent lisp implementation. The only
thing that's not so nice about it is overly simple command-line
interface. The absence of `<UP>`, `C-a`, `M-b`, etc. can be annoying,
even though I only occasionally use SBCL directly.

I have 3 solutions to this problem now:

- Use [SLIME](http://common-lisp.net/project/slime/), which is what I
  do most of the time, but sometimes this isn't practical.

- Use [Linedit](http://common-lisp.net/project/linedit/). I tried
  this, and it was cool. But somehow I broke it and now I can't get it
  to work.

- Use [rlwrap](http://utopia.knoware.nl/~hlub/uck/rlwrap/#rlwrap).
  This requires you to either always invoke SBCL as `rlwrap sbcl` or
  create an alias for it. This works very well too, is very simple and
  doesn't noticeably increase start-up time.