lua @5.2.2_1 arrow keys don't work in interpreter

[maxheinrich1988@…]

I can't use the arrow keys (left, right, up, down) in the lua interpreter. I installed it with

ip220:~ max$ sudo port install lua

Pressing the arrow keys, I get the following output (left, up, right, down pressed)

ip220:~ max$ lua
Lua 5.2.2  Copyright (C) 1994-2013 Lua.org, PUC-Rio
> ^[[D^[[A^[[C^[[B

[Veence (Vincent)]

Something is wrong with readline?

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

You could invoke lua with rlwrap in the meantime.

[maxheinrich1988@…]

Replying to ryandesign@…:

You could invoke lua with rlwrap in the meantime.

This works for me. Thanks!

sudo port install rlwrap
rlwrap lua

[pawrsccouk@…]

I am getting the same issue with lua 5.2.3 as of 7th July 2014.

Looking at the build, it appears that readline is invoked when building the object files for the lua library (liblua.dylib) but is not invoked when building the lua executable. In the makefile at /opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_tarballs_ports_lang_lua/lua/work/lua-5.2.3/src The line building the final executable is

$(LUA_T): $(LUA_O) $(LUA_A)
 	$(CC) -o $@ -L. $(MYLDFLAGS) $(MYCFLAGS) $(LIBS) -llua lua.c

If I change this to

$(LUA_T): $(LUA_O) $(LUA_A)
 	$(CC) -o $@ -L. $(SYSCFLAGS) $(MYLDFLAGS) $(MYCFLAGS) $(LIBS) -llua lua.c

and recompile, then it uses the readline library as expected. This is at line 69 of the Makefile. It appears that SYSCFLAGS is not passed to the compiler. This is the variable that includes the header definitions for the macosx platform, which causes readline to be selected in luaconf.h.

[pawrsccouk@…]

Cc Me!

[merkste@…]

Apparently, this bug is still present in 2.3.1. Is there any reason not to include the makefile fix above?

[merkste@…]

Cc Me!

[merkste@…]

Cc Me!

[merkste@…]

Cc Me!

[meowsqueak@…]

Cc Me!

[dbevans (David B. Evans)]

Cc Me!

[meowsqueak@…]

Replacement patch for Lua 5.3.1, incorporating the fix previously mentioned.

[meowsqueak@…]

I've put the fix proposed by pawrsccouk@… into a replacement patch (see attached). This should replace the existing patch file of the same name.

[dbevans (David B. Evans)]

Replacement patch committed in r and revision incremented to force the rebuild. Arrow keys now work as expected when using lua interactively. Thanks for helping to close this ticket.