Making IRB work properly under Windows when using an international keyboard

Until today, I've been looking for a way to solve a problem I have running irb under Windows. The problem is that I'm using an international keyboard layout and keys like [, ], { and } (which are really useful in Ruby) could not be inputted in irb when readline is enabled.

I did some research on the web, but the solution did not worked for me (and it looks like I'm not the only one). A few weeks ago, I stopped looking for a solution as I decided to do my RoR work on a Linux Virtual machine. For some reason, I had to start working on Windows again. So today, I decided to dig a bit deeper. As the proposed solution used an .inputrc file, I investigated the format of the file and came across a post that described a problem using the Meta key shortcut (M-) in a .inputrc file. The response to the problem suggested to use "\e" instead of "M-". So I did that and guess what? it worked!

So putting everything together :

1. Add the HOME environment variable => HOME=%USERPROFILE%
2. Create a .inputrc file in your home folder (cd %USERPROFILE%) with the following content :

"\e[": "["
"\e]": "]"
"\e{": "{"
"\e}": "}"
"\e\": "\"
"\e|": "|"
"\e@": "@"
"\e~": "~" 

3. For added completion/history management, create a .irbrc file in your home folder with the following content:

require 'irb/completion'
ARGV.concat([ "--readline", "--prompt-mode", "simple" ])

module Readline
  module History
    LOG = "#{ENV['HOME']}/.irb-history"

    def self.write_log(line)
      File.open(LOG, 'ab') {|f| f << "#{line}\n"}
    end

    def self.start_session_log
      write_log("\n# session start: #{Time.now}\n\n")
      at_exit { write_log("\n# session stop: #{Time.now}\n") }
    end
  end

  alias :old_readline :readline
  def readline(*args)
    ln = old_readline(*args)
    begin
      History.write_log(ln)
    rescue
    end
    ln
  end
end

#Readline::History.start_session_log

require 'irb/ext/save-history'
IRB.conf[:SAVE_HISTORY] = 100
IRB.conf[:HISTORY_FILE] = "#{ENV['HOME']}/.irb-save-history"

And you're done!