The GNU Readline library is used with IRB [Interactive Ruby] to make the Rails breakpoint & console scripts support command history & method completion (more on breakpoints at HowtoDebugWithBreakpoint.)
Using Readline with Ruby requires two things:
- a current, working version of the Readline library
- Ruby’s readline extension, made this way on UNIX-like systems:
cd </code>/path/to/ruby_source<code>/ext/readline
ruby extconf.rb
make
make install </code> [do this as root/admin]
For Mac OS X users, a package installer of Ruby 1.8.2 that includes GNU Readline 5.0 is currently available from a gracious developer. (Be careful installing such a package over a pre-existing Ruby install; you might want to move any previous install out of the way.)
The GNU Readline library is used with IRB [Interactive Ruby] to make the Rails breakpoint & console scripts support command history & method completion (more on breakpoints at HowtoDebugWithBreakpoint.)
Using Readline with Ruby requires two things:
- a current, working version of the Readline library
- Ruby’s readline extension, made this way on UNIX-like systems:
cd </code>/path/to/ruby_source<code>/ext/readline
ruby extconf.rb
make
make install </code> [do this as root/admin]
For Mac OS X users, a package installer of Ruby 1.8.2 that includes GNU Readline 5.0 is currently available from a gracious developer. (Be careful installing such a package over a pre-existing Ruby install; you might want to move any previous install out of the way.)