# Is readline really broken in MacOS Snow Leopard!?!?! **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [February 2, 2010, 5:14am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-readline-really-broken-in-macos-snow-leopard/182741 "2010-02-02T05:14:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![tomfooolerie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ebca7d/32.png) [@tomfooolerie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tomfooolerie)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 5:14am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-readline-really-broken-in-macos-snow-leopard/182741/1 "2010-02-02T05:14:59Z")
It seems that readline (and hence gets) is broken in Ruby 1.8.7, on Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard). According to the article here: [http://blog.angelbob.com/posts/39-Compiling-Ruby-1-8-7-on-a-PowerBook-G4-with-Mac-OS-X-1-4---published-ruby](http://blog.angelbob.com/posts/39-Compiling-Ruby-1-8-7-on-a-PowerBook-G4-with-Mac-OS-X-1-4---published-ruby), it says “Newer versions of the readline library prepend an “rl\_” in front of function names”. Before I go to the trouble of removing Ruby and downloading, then building Ruby from source, I wanted to ask if anyone here has another method of fixing it? Thanks, Tom ---
**Author:** ![tomfooolerie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ebca7d/32.png) [@tomfooolerie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tomfooolerie)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 5:27am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-readline-really-broken-in-macos-snow-leopard/182741/2 "2010-02-02T05:27:41Z")
On Mon, Feb 1, 2010 at 8:15 PM, TomTom III [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > It seems that readline (and hence gets) is broken in Ruby 1.8.7, on Mac > OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard). According to the article here: > [http://blog.angelbob.com/posts/39-Compiling-Ruby-1-8-7-on-a-PowerBook-G4-with-Mac-OS-X-1-4---published-ruby](http://blog.angelbob.com/posts/39-Compiling-Ruby-1-8-7-on-a-PowerBook-G4-with-Mac-OS-X-1-4---published-ruby), > it says “Newer versions of the readline library prepend an “rl\_” in > front of function names”. Uh, Snow Leopard is 10.6. That article is about 10.4. Snow Leopard ships with 1.8.7 built-in with a working Readline… note that it may not actually use readline internally, but it is functionally equivalent. Bottom line: shouldn’t need to do anything. Ben ---
**Author:** ![tomfooolerie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ebca7d/32.png) [@tomfooolerie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tomfooolerie)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 8:36am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-readline-really-broken-in-macos-snow-leopard/182741/3 "2010-02-02T08:36:07Z")
On Feb 1, 2010, at 20:15 , TomTom III wrote: > It seems that readline (and hence gets) is broken in Ruby 1.8.7, on Mac > OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard). According to the article here: > [http://blog.angelbob.com/posts/39-Compiling-Ruby-1-8-7-on-a-PowerBook-G4-with-Mac-OS-X-1-4---published-ruby](http://blog.angelbob.com/posts/39-Compiling-Ruby-1-8-7-on-a-PowerBook-G4-with-Mac-OS-X-1-4---published-ruby), > it says “Newer versions of the readline library prepend an “rl\_” in > front of function names”. > > Before I go to the trouble of removing Ruby and downloading, then > building Ruby from source, I wanted to ask if anyone here has another > method of fixing it? you DO know that 10.6 ships with ruby 1.8.7, right? and it works, right? and you shouldn’t remove the stock ruby because it’ll just come back on updates… right? ---
**Author:** ![tomfooolerie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ebca7d/32.png) [@tomfooolerie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tomfooolerie)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 6:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-readline-really-broken-in-macos-snow-leopard/182741/4 "2010-02-02T18:17:35Z")
Jose Hales-Garcia wrote: > On Feb 1, 2010, at 8:15 PM, TomTom III wrote: > > > Before I go to the trouble of removing Ruby and downloading, then > > building Ruby from source > > There’s no need to remove the vendor version since, by default, an > installation of Ruby will go in /usr/local. You just need to put > /usr/local/bin ahead of /usr/bin in your PATH variable to call your > custom version by default. But, you should be including full paths to > commands in your scripts anyway, for security and sanity reasons. > > Jose > … > Jose Hales-Garcia > UCLA Department of Statistics > removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid Yes, I know 10.6 is Snow Leopard, and 1.8.7 came with it. I am wondering if something I installed afterward could have broken it? I’ve installed a few add-ons via github, but figured they have been well tried. Maybe I should removed the development package and reinstall? Or is there a place I can review what was installed and when, so I could remove the stuff I’ve added instead? Thanks for all the replies. ---
**Author:** ![tomfooolerie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ebca7d/32.png) [@tomfooolerie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tomfooolerie)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 7:28pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-readline-really-broken-in-macos-snow-leopard/182741/5 "2010-02-02T19:28:58Z")
TomTom III wrote: > Jose Hales-Garcia wrote: > > > On Feb 1, 2010, at 8:15 PM, TomTom III wrote: > > > > > Before I go to the trouble of removing Ruby and downloading, then > > > building Ruby from source > > > > There’s no need to remove the vendor version since, by default, an > > installation of Ruby will go in /usr/local. You just need to put > > /usr/local/bin ahead of /usr/bin in your PATH variable to call your > > custom version by default. But, you should be including full paths to > > commands in your scripts anyway, for security and sanity reasons. > > > > Jose > > … > > Jose Hales-Garcia > > UCLA Department of Statistics > > removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid > > Yes, I know 10.6 is Snow Leopard, and 1.8.7 came with it. I am wondering > if something I installed afterward could have broken it? I’ve installed > a few add-ons via github, but figured they have been well tried. > > Maybe I should removed the development package and reinstall? Or is > there a place I can review what was installed and when, so I could > remove the stuff I’ve added instead? > > Thanks for all the replies. Just follow the instructions at [http://henrik.nyh.se/2008/03/irb-readline](http://henrik.nyh.se/2008/03/irb-readline) . Best, –Â Marnen Laibow-Koser [http://www.marnen.org](http://www.marnen.org) removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid ---
**Author:** ![tomfooolerie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/ebca7d/32.png) [@tomfooolerie](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tomfooolerie)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 4:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/is-readline-really-broken-in-macos-snow-leopard/182741/6 "2010-02-02T16:21:25Z")
On Feb 1, 2010, at 8:15 PM, TomTom III wrote: > Before I go to the trouble of removing Ruby and downloading, then > building Ruby from source There’s no need to remove the vendor version since, by default, an installation of Ruby will go in /usr/local. You just need to put /usr/local/bin ahead of /usr/bin in your PATH variable to call your custom version by default. But, you should be including full paths to commands in your scripts anyway, for security and sanity reasons. Jose … Jose Hales-Garcia UCLA Department of Statistics removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid