Java-Readline is a port of GNU Readline for Java. Or, to be more precise, it is a JNI-wrapper to Readline. It is distributed under the LGPL. You must call Readline.load(ReadlineLibrary lib); before using any other methods. If you omit the call to the load()-method, the pure Java fallback solution is used. Possible values for lib are: ReadlineLibrary.PureJava ReadlineLibrary.GnuReadline ReadlineLibrary.Editline ReadlineLibrary.Getline Note that all programs using GnuReadline will fall under the GPL, since Gnu-Readline is GPL software! WWW: http://sourceforge.net/projects/java-readline/