From: Joel VanderWerf <vjoel@...>
Date: 2007-12-25T03:36:58+09:00
Subject: Re: upper arrow key is not worked in irb.  is it bug?

Pokkai Dokkai wrote:
> i manually download ruby-1.8.6.tar.gz
> 
> i installed into /home/username/package/ruby  (using --prefix)
> and add the manual path into PATH variable
> 
> when i was working in irb
> 
> if i press upper arrow key then '^[[A' will come .after that if i press
> enter then my irb will quit.

Do you have the readline and readline-devel packages installed? If you 
install them (whether using your OS's package manager or building from 
source), then when you build ruby it will recognize them and irb will 
use readline, which should give you the desired up-arrow behavior.

On my Ubuntu system these packages are called libreadline5 and 
libreadline5-dev.

You can check in your ruby-1.8.6/ext/readline whether the ruby wrapper 
got built or not. Just run 'ruby extconf.rb' there and see if some 
checks fail.

After installing the readline packages, these checks should succeed. In 
that case, do 'make && make install' in the same dir and irb should work 
right.

-- 
       vjoel : Joel VanderWerf : path berkeley edu : 510 665 3407