On Tuesday, 18 March 2003 at  0:42:58 +0900, Sam Roberts wrote:
> Sorry for being vague. What I want is simpler that that - I want to be able to
> use the arrow keys (or even ^p) to go back through the history, and to move
> back through a line and edit it!
> 
> I can't use any line editing keys right now, its getting irritating!
> 
> Completion, I think, allows TAB to complete  the names of methods, correct?
 
Yes

> [ensemble] ~/p/ruby/vcard $ irb -r irb/completion
> /usr/lib/ruby/1.6/irb/completion.rb:10:in `require': No such file to load -- readline (LoadError)
>         from /usr/lib/ruby/1.6/irb/completion.rb:10
>         from /usr/lib/ruby/1.6/irb/init.rb:197:in `require'
>         from /usr/lib/ruby/1.6/irb/init.rb:197:in `load_modules'
>         from /usr/lib/ruby/1.6/irb/init.rb:195:in `each'
>         from /usr/lib/ruby/1.6/irb/init.rb:195:in `load_modules'
>         from /usr/lib/ruby/1.6/irb.rb:52:in `start'
>         from /usr/bin/irb:13
> 
> ext/readline is supposed to be part of ruby, isn't it?
> 

The readline extension is, but not readline itself.
I think what you are missing is just the readline.so.

irb
irb(main):001:0> $"
=> ["irb.rb", "e2mmap.rb", "irb/init.rb", "irb/context.rb",
"irb/workspace.rb", "irb/extend-command.rb", 
"irb/ruby-lex.rb", "irb/slex.rb", "irb/ruby-token.rb",
"irb/input-method.rb", "readline.so", "irb/locale.rb", 
"kconv.rb", "nkf.so", "tempfile.rb", "delegate.rb",
"irb/completion.rb"]


IIRC, once you get readline up and running, you can set the mode in
.inputrc


cat .inputrc
set editing-mode vi


-- 
Jim Freeze
----------
Save the whales.  Collect the whole set.