I couldn't find a way to update the bug report directly, so I'm replying by email. Please let me know if there is a better way.
The before/after tty settings differences only appear if your original settings are different from libedit's defaults. It turns out that the differences do not show up with xterm (in my environment). The changes are very noticeable when running an emacs shell. I've modified the test to highlight the issue regardless of default shell tty settings.
/*---------------------------------------
* Simple program: tty_test.c
*---------------------------------------*/
#include "editline/readline.h"
int main(int argc, char* argv[]) {
rl_initialize();
return 0;
}
/*---------------------------------------
* Compile
*---------------------------------------*/
% gcc -o tty_test -Ilibedit_install/include tty_test.c libedit_install/lib/libedit.a -lncurses
/*----------------------------------------
* Modified test:
*----------------------------------------*/
% stty -icanon # Force tty settings to be different from libedit default.
% stty -a > orig.txt
% tty_test
% stty -a > after.txt
% diff orig.txt after.txt # Differences exist