arrow keys are not functional in sqlplus

Question

I find that the arrow keys don't work on the sqlplus console. For example if I press left arrow key, it shows like

SQL>^[[B

Does any solutions exist to solve this problem?

Answer 1

You can use a third party utility called rlwrap.

rlwrap is a readline wrapper, a small utility that uses the GNU readline library to allow the editing of keyboard input for any other command. It maintains a separate input history for each command, and can TAB-expand words using all previously seen words and/or a user-specified file.

So you will be able to use arrows and also get a command history as a bonus.

After you have installed the utility run sqlplus the following way:

$ rlwrap sqlplus

Answer 2

As Johnny suggested, you can install the rlwrap utility to manage command history for any other command, including sqlplus. Another useful trick is to alias the wrapped version of sqlplus so you don't have to type rlwrap sqlplus every time.

alias sqlplus="rlwrap sqlplus"