How do I compile Readline support into Ruby

Question

My version of ruby was compiled with editline (on os x) and I miss the features of readline in irb.

How do I recompile ruby with readline support?

Aslant

Answer 1

1. Install readline to /usr/local
2. Recompile ruby from scratch and use the --with-readline-dir=/usr/local switch

or if you have downloaded the ruby sources earlier and built it by hand,

1. Go to the ext/readline folder of your ruby source tree
2. Type ruby extconf.rb and then run the make && make install procedure for ruby.

Globefish

Check out bogojoker.com/readline for more information on readline in general. – Lawlor

Notably the 2nd set requires you to have ruby installed, which may mean compiling and installing ruby once without readline, only to recompile and reinstall again it with readline. Recursive dependencies suck. – Clinician

Answer 2

There's also a pure ruby readline.

Pythia

google's first result for "pure ruby readline" was the right place. – Pythia