Me too. And not entering anything gives normal arrow up, so there's no loss.
BTW: ^r is a little more powerful: it is /string/ while this one is /^string/
BTW ^r annoyance: you can't type and then hit ^r. You have to hit ^r first. Seems easy to fix...
BTW tip: if you like readline features, consider rlwrap: it wraps its argument (which is your command) in readline. e.g. rlwrap python. Especially nice to wrap your own interactive cmdline tool.
BTW: ^r is a little more powerful: it is /string/ while this one is /^string/
BTW ^r annoyance: you can't type and then hit ^r. You have to hit ^r first. Seems easy to fix...
BTW tip: if you like readline features, consider rlwrap: it wraps its argument (which is your command) in readline. e.g. rlwrap python. Especially nice to wrap your own interactive cmdline tool.