How to enable the up/down arrow keys to show previous inputs when using `read`?

Question

I'm waiting for user input (using 'read') in an infinite loop and would like to have command history, that is being able to show previous inputs that were already entered, using the up and down arrow keys, instead of getting ^[[A and ^[[B. Is this possible?

---

Thanks to @l0b0 for your answer. It got me on the right direction. After playing with it for some time I've realized I also need the following two features, but I haven't managed to get them yet:

• If I press up and add something to the previous command I would like to have the whole thing saved in the history, not just the addition. Example

  $ ./up_and_down
  Enter command: hello
  ENTER
  Enter command:
  Up
  Enter command: hello you
  ENTER
  Enter command:
  Up
  Enter command: you
  (instead of "hello you")

• If I can't keep going up because I'm at the end of the history array, I don't want the cursor to move to the previous line, instead I want it to stay fixed.

This is what I have so far (up_and_down):

#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -o nounset -o errexit -o pipefail

read_history() {
    local char
    local string
    local esc=$'\e'
    local up=$'\e[A'
    local down=$'\e[B'
    local clear_line=$'\r\e[K'


    local history=()
    local -i history_index=0

    # Read one character at a time
    while IFS="" read -p "Enter command:" -n1 -s char ; do
        if [[ "$char" == "$esc" ]]; then 
            # Get the rest of the escape sequence (3 characters total)
            while read -n2 -s rest ; do
                char+="$rest"
                break
            done
        fi

        if [[ "$char" == "$up" && $history_index > 0 ]] ; then
            history_index+=-1
            echo -ne $clear_line${history[$history_index]}
        elif [[ "$char" == "$down" && $history_index < $((${#history[@]} - 1)) ]] ; then
            history_index+=1
            echo -ne $clear_line${history[$history_index]}
        elif [[ -z "$char" ]]; then # user pressed ENTER
            echo
            history+=( "$string" )
            string=
            history_index=${#history[@]}
        else
            echo -n "$char"
            string+="$char"
        fi
    done
}
read_history

Answer 1

Two solutions using the -e option to the read command combined with the builtin history command:

# version 1
while IFS="" read -r -e -d $'\n' -p 'input> ' line; do 
   echo "$line"
   history -s "$line"
done

# version 2
while IFS="" read -r -e -d $'\n' -p 'input> ' line; do 
   echo "$line"
   echo "$line" >> ~/.bash_history
   history -n
done