I have added a new script to the maxima distribution, rmaxima. rmaxima
gives the command-line version maxima advanced line editing
capabilities, including history that is persistent across sessions.
rmaxima is simply the ordinary maxima script wrapped with rlwrap.
Therefore, rmaxima is required to use rmaxima. rlwrap is a GNU
readline-based wrapper for any command-line program. If rmaxima doesn't
find rlwrap, it prints a message telling the user where to find the
rlwrap distribution.
There are a few points to consider:
0) I consider rmaxima to an interface experiment. *I* find it the best
way to interact with maxima when I am not using TeXmacs. Others'
findings may vary.
1) I realize that introducing a new script just to add a simple command
in front of the maxima shell script is a little goofy. However, I
believe it is the best compromise among the several I considered.
2) rmaxima doesn't work with gcl or clisp. I think it's because readline
is already available in those lisp implementations. Most of the rlwrap
functionality would be redundant, but the persistent history would be
nice to have.
3) Tab completion for keywords could be easily added, but I haven't
tried it yet.
4) Unfortunately, I don't think rlwrap works on windows.
Comments are welcome.
--Jim