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-8.1.2
        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
If desired, install the documentation:
install -v -m644 doc/*.{ps,pdf,html,dvi} /usr/share/doc/readline-8.1.2