[slightly OT] up key doesn't work in irb

ruby-talk
1

Hello,

I had ruby 1.6.2 which came with my mandrake 8.0. I just upgraded to ruby

1.6.8 (compiled from source), and now in irb the “up” key doesn’t work
anymore, instead ^[[A is displayed on the screen…

I'm sorry if it's basic UNIX/linux knowledge.. I don't find anything on

google, also because google scrambles the string “^[[A”.
And in the time being programming in ruby has become horrible, as I really
depended in this irb feature…

thank for any answer,

emmanuel

···

–
“Droit devant soi, on ne peut pas aller bien loin”
- Le petit prince, Antoine de Saint Exupéry

2

  I had ruby 1.6.2 which came with my mandrake 8.0. I just upgraded to ruby
1.6.8 (compiled from source), and now in irb the "up" key doesn't work
anymore, instead ^[[A is displayed on the screen...

Verify that ruby has build the extension readline

pigeon% ruby -rreadline -e 1
pigeon%

If it give an error, goto ruby-1.6.8/ext/readline and run

  ruby extconf.rb

to see if it give an error message

Guy Decoux

3

THANK YOU.

installing readline-devel and recompiling ruby fixed it… wow, that was a
fast and accurate answer :O)

emmanuel, back on track

···

On Saturday 22 of March 2003 13:20, ts wrote:

Verify that ruby has build the extension readline

pigeon% ruby -rreadline -e 1
pigeon%

–
“Droit devant soi, on ne peut pas aller bien loin”
- Le petit prince, Antoine de Saint Exupéry

4

“ts” decoux@moulon.inra.fr wrote in message

Hello Guy,

I am using ruby 1.6.8 (2002-12-24) [i586-mswin32] installed with PragProg’s
one-click installer on Windows.
I do not have “up” key problem in irb.
But I know that readline my version of ruby does not have readline support,
because …

I had ruby 1.6.2 which came with my mandrake 8.0. I just upgraded to
ruby
1.6.8 (compiled from source), and now in irb the “up” key doesn’t work
anymore, instead ^[[A is displayed on the screen…

Verify that ruby has build the extension readline

pigeon% ruby -rreadline -e 1
pigeon%

… when I do this I get an error :

ruby: No such file to load – readline (LoadError)

If it give an error, goto ruby-1.6.8/ext/readline and run

ruby extconf.rb

So will I have some other problems down the road?

This question is for those involved: is readline support on Win32 planed in
future ?

5

So will I have some other problems down the road?

No, you just don't have access to this extension : this just mean that you
can't use cursor key with irb (just like with the old DOS) but irb still
work fine.

Guy Decoux

6

“ts” decoux@moulon.inra.fr wrote in message

No, you just don’t have access to this extension :

So there are some programs I won’t be able to run. Right?

this just mean that you can’t use cursor key with irb

By cursor keys, if you mean the up-down-left-right arrow keys,
then I have confirmed that I can use them in IRB even without the extension.

But that may be part of the native windows magic because I can
do that even at the command prompt:C:>

Thanks for you help.
– shanko

7

So there are some programs I won't be able to run. Right?

Well, readline is just to have access to up-down-left-right arrow keys :
if these keys work in irb without this extension this just mean that on
Windows you don't need it and you'll able to run any programs.

Guy Decoux

8

“ts” decoux@moulon.inra.fr wrote in message

Well, readline is just to have access to up-down-left-right arrow keys :
if these keys work in irb without this extension this just mean that on
Windows you don’t need it and you’ll able to run any programs.

Got it !

Guy Decoux

Thanks, Guy.