command line editing and line length problems with serial port

[Rob Landley]

On Thursday 29 June 2006 7:02 pm, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> On Thursday 29 June 2006 09:06, Paul Fox wrote:
> >  > >This really sounds like a bug in your xterm.  Can you try it from a
> >  > > text console (ctrl-alt-f1) or a different xterm (the gnome or kde
> >  > > ones, or the actual "xterm" command if you're already using one of
> >  > > those...?)
> >  >
> >  > I can reproduce this in Hyperterm on a windose box with terminal
> >  > settings of a vt100 with 132 column mode.
> >
> > busybox cmdedit can only handle long lines properly if it knows
> > how wide the screen is.  if you use a 132 column emulator, but linux
> > thinks the window is only 80 columns wide, i suspect you'll get
> > that behavior.
>
> in a serial console, the size is never known (stty size will tell you 0 0)
> -mike

Which is why we assume 80 by 24 if we can't query it in 
get_terminal_width_height().  We're already doing the best we can in that 
circumstance.  I'm open for suggestions on how to improve it, but nothing 
springs to mind.  (Perhaps the shell needs a warning "unable to detect 
terminal size" when stdin is a tty and it can't tell?)

Rob
-- 
Never bet against the cheap plastic solution.