The Readline package is a set of libraries that offers command-line editing and history capabilities.
Reinstalling Readline will cause the old libraries to be moved to <libraryname>.old. While this is normally not a problem, in some cases it can trigger a linking bug in ldconfig. This can be avoided by issuing the following two seds:
sed -i '/MV.*old/d' Makefile.in
sed -i '/{OLDSUFF}/c:' support/shlib-install
Prepare Readline for compilation:
./configure --prefix=/usr \
--disable-static \
--with-curses \
--docdir=/usr/share/doc/readline-8.0
The meaning of the configure option:
--with-curses"
This option tells Readline that it can find the termcap
library functions in the curses library, rather than a
separate termcap library. It allows generating a correct
readline.pc file.
Compile the package:
make SHLIB_LIBS="-lncursesw"
The meaning of the make option:
SHLIB_LIBS="-lncursesw"
This option forces Readline to link against the libncursesw library.
This package does not come with a test suite.
Install the package:
make SHLIB_LIBS="-lncursesw" install
Now move the dynamic libraries to a more appropriate location and fix up some permissions and symbolic links:
mv -v /usr/lib/lib{readline,history}.so.* /lib
chmod -v u+w /lib/lib{readline,history}.so.*
ln -sfv ../../lib/$(readlink /usr/lib/libreadline.so) /usr/lib/libreadline.so
ln -sfv ../../lib/$(readlink /usr/lib/libhistory.so ) /usr/lib/libhistory.so
If desired, install the documentation:
install -v -m644 doc/*.{ps,pdf,html,dvi} /usr/share/doc/readline-8.0