Re: psql question

Joe Conway writes:

> On machines where I've installed PostgreSQL 7.0.2 from RPM, psql allows use
> of the up arrow key for history and the escape/tab key for command
> completion, but on my remote web host (webpipe.net) those keys don't work.
> What do I need to do to get these features working on my remote web host?
> I've seen reference to .psqlrc in the psql man file, but not much else (no
> syntax, etc).

If you compiled from source, make sure you had the readline-devel package
installed.

$ man psql

<snip>
If you have the readline library installed but psql does
not seem to use it, you must make sure that Postgres's
top-level configure script finds it. configure needs to
find both the library libreadline.a (or a shared library
equivalent) and the header files readline.h and history.h
(or readline/readline.h and readline/history.h) in appro­
priate directories. If you have the library and header
files installed in an obscure place you must tell config­
ure about them, for example:

$ ./configure --with-includes=/opt/gnu/include --with-libs=/opt/gnu/lib ...

Then you have to recompile psql (not necessarily the
entire code tree).

The GNU readline library can be obtained from the GNU pro­
ject's FTP server at ftp://ftp.gnu.org
<URL:ftp://ftp.gnu.org>.

--
Peter Eisentraut peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net http://yi.org/peter-e/