Arrow keys not working in sqlite3 prompt

[Ivan Popivanov]

sqlite3 uses history via the readline library. It used to work just fine on 14.04. After I upgraded to 16.04, the arrow keys stopped working.

The sqlite3 executable is NOT linked against the readline library, and from googling on the internet that seems to be the reason why the keys are not working.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: sqlite3 3.11.0-1ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-38.57-generic 4.4.19
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-38-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.1
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Sat Oct 8 14:15:09 2016
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-02-22 (229 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Beta amd64 (20150805)
SourcePackage: sqlite3
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to xenial on 2016-09-22 (16 days ago)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Paolo Montrasio (paolo-paolomontrasio)]

Confirmed and very annoying. It feels like working in the 80s (I remember).

There is workaround until they fix this bug:

sudo apt install rlwrap
rlwrap sqlite3 db-file

but I'm afraid that very few people know about rlwrap. I do only because I googled this bug.