Thanks, Serhiy, this is very nice! Ideally, we should have this for 3.12. What do you think? I'm not sure it can be considered a defect/bug.

It is clearly not a bug fix. But it is so much must have feature, that it should go in 3.12.1. Let wait on the release of 3.12.0.

@Yhg1s

This is a new feature, IMO it's too late for Python 3.12. I dislike when Python behavior changes in 3.x.y bug releases, sorry.

If you want readline in Python 3.12, you can write your CLI code:

#import readline
import sqlite3.__main__
import sys
sqlite3.__main__.main(sys.argv[1:])

I forgot or didn't know that sqlite3 has a command-line interface. I created issue #109435 to document all stdlib modules which provides a command-line interface (CLI).

The sqlite3 CLI is new in 3.12. This is why I think it is a good idea to backport this change.

I always use utilites that read from the stdin with an external wrapper (rlwrap), but the sqlite3 CLI differs from the dis CLI or others which also can read from the stdin, -- it is intended as a REPL.

The sqlite3 CLI is new in 3.12. This is why I think it is a good idea to backport this change.

Aha, you can negociate with @Yhg1s. First land it in the main branch :-)

Thanks @serhiy-storchaka for the PR 🌮🎉.. I'm working now to backport this PR to: 3.12.
🐍🍒⛏🤖

GH-110352 is a backport of this pull request to the 3.12 branch.

Thanks, Serhiy!