MySQL command line - bind <UP> key to a backward command search

Question

With mysql command line client on Ubuntu 14.04 I could bind UP to a backward command search by adding the following lines to ~/.inputrc

# type a word, hit up and a search is performed
# "\e[A": history-search-backward

This inputrc setting would be read and provide customised bindings in MySQL command line, i.e. start interactive MySQL command line:

% mysql -uroot -p
Enter password:
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 13
Server version: 5.7.12-0ubuntu1 (Ubuntu)

Then once in I could type a word and hit UP and the mysql command line would perform a backward search through the command history based on the word:

mysql> select <UP>

would give results like

mysql> select * from user;

I literally had the same settings in 14.04 and they worked, now in ubuntu 16.04 and mysql-client-5.7 this doesn't work, instead I simply get the default behaviour of showing previous commands in chronological order.
How can I get the UP key to perform a command history search in mysql command line?

Answer 1

I discovered that this version of MySQL 5.7.x on ubuntu 16.04 is compiled using editline library not readline - Im pretty sure thats the problem.