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?

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.

Answer 2

There's also a pure ruby readline.