Installing HighLine

RubyGems is the preferred easy install method for HighLine. However, you can install HighLine manually as described below.

Installing the Gem

HighLine is intended to be installed via the RubyGems system. To get the latest version, simply enter the following into your command prompt:

$ sudo gem install highline

You must have RubyGems installed for the above to work.

If you want to build the gem locally, make sure you have Rake installed then run the following command:

$ rake package

Installing Manually

Download the latest version of HighLine from the RubyForge project page. Navigate to the root project directory and enter:

$ sudo ruby setup.rb

Installing HighLine on JRuby

If you are using HighLine on JRuby, many features will not work properly without a working ncurses installation. First, ensure that you have ncurses installed and then install the ffi-ncurses gem.

If ffi-ncurses fails to find your ncurses library, you may need to set the RUBY_FFI_NCURSES envirionment variable, i.e:

RUBY_FFI_NCURSES_LIB=ncursesw ruby examples/hello.rb

For details, see the ffi-ncurses documentation at: github.com/seanohalpin/ffi-ncurses

Using termios

While not a requirement, HighLine will take advantage of the termios library if installed (on Unix). This slightly improves HighLine's character reading capabilities and thus is recommended for all Unix users.

If using the HighLine gem, you should be able to add termios as easily as:

$ sudo gem install termios

For manual installs, consult the termios documentation.