This patch adds a snippet to configure.in,
to check whether 
rl_completion_append_character
(which is used in Python 
2.3) is available.

rl_prep_terminal is assumed to co-exist 
with rl_completion_append_character.

It is assumed that 
HAVE_RL_COMPLETION_APPEND_CHARACTER will be 
used in readline.c to make it compatible with older versions of the 
readline library.

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New patch for configure.in (added a comment) and a patch
for 
readline.c that uses 
HAVE_RL_COMPLETION_APPEND_CHARACTER.

Tested 
on Gentoo Linux with new readline (the new completion
behaviour 
was preserved) and on Solaris with old readline (now compiles, with old 
completion behaviour in place).

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Checked in. Thanks!

Hm, this should be backported to 2.2.3 too! So I'll keep it
open.

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I need a volunteer to backport this to 2.2 who can run an
older version of autoconf; the autoconf that I have
installed is too new to process the 2.2 configure.in file.
(The 2.3 version is already checked in.)

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Magnus, it would be great if you could test 2.2.3 from CVS
too.  I have checked in a change that builds and works with
newer versions of readline.  I don't have readline v2.2.

Checked in as:
 * configure 1.279.6.19
 * configure.in 1.288.6.19
 * Modules/readline.c 2.41.6.7

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I've now tested it with 2.2.3 (using the 2.2 maintenance branch,
which 
had the revision numbers you cited) and it works nicely.
That is, my 
old readline (readline 2.2, I think, although I couldn't
find the version 
number this time around -- at least it doesn't
have the completer 
character functionality) works. There is one thing I find a bit odd, though... 
With the 2.3 version of this check, the following ends up in 
pyconfig.h:

/* Define if you have readline 2.2 */
/* #undef 
HAVE_RL_COMPLETION_APPEND_CHARACTER 
*/

However, it isn't there when I use the 2.2 branch version. I guess 
it shouldn't matter either way (it's uncommented anyway), but it seems 
that the two versions behave differently, though... But since it all works, 
it's a bit hard to find out what's "wrong", if anything...

Anyway, the 
(tentative) verdict from me is that it works.

And just a final note: 
This check is really sort of a "band aid" solution, since the behaviour of the 
completer will differ, based on which readline version you have. Making 
the default the same for readline 2.2 and readline 4.* and making it 
configurable from Python for the newer versions might be better... 
Although possibly not important enough to warrant the work.

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Hmmm, I didn't realize I had to add
HAVE_RL_COMPLETION_APPEND_CHARACTER manually.

Checked in as: pyconfig.h.in 1.20.8.3