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Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.2.20020131143102.026df2c0@pop3.cris.com>
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 14:59:46 -0800
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
From: Randall R Schulz <rrschulz AT cris DOT com>
Subject: Re: FW: Updated: rxvt-2.7.2-8
In-Reply-To: <B87F2431.30D1%KPRoth@bigfoot.com>
References: <20020129135548 DOT A14080 AT hagbard DOT io DOT com>
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Kevin,

No Unix (-like) system has forward delete during "cooked" mode terminal 
interaction. One could only choose which ASCII code coming from the 
terminal would cause removal of the currently final character of the input 
line buffer to be removed.

In editors such as Vi or Emacs, all keystroke input is processed in "raw" 
or "cbreak" mode (no line buffering in the tty driver) and is mediated 
through bindings (some or all of which are rebindable by the user, 
depending on which of these we're considering) and things like forward 
delete become perfectly feasible and commonly supported.

Absent readline, or prior to its introduction (or that of something 
similar), that was all there was for command line programs such as shells 
(or editors like "ed"--remember ed?). It was either line-buffered 
("cooked"), "raw" (virtually no driver processing of input keystrokes) or 
"cbreak" (immediate wake-up with signals generated).

Now that we do have readline-enabled "command line" applications, BASH or 
other shells being the most salient in this context, a line like this in 
your .inputrc will achieve the results you desire:

"\M-[3~":       delete-char

(Note: that corresponds to ESC, [, 3, ~ coming from the keyboard")

This happens to work both for RXVT and a console, but those two do not 
agree on all non-graphic keys such as the Fn function keys.

The readline man page does not mention any automatic use of /etc/inputrc 
(analagous to /etc/cshrc, /etc/bashrc or /etc/login), so there's no obvious 
way to make this a global default. Since there is likewise no user creation 
command, there's no obvious hook for placing such a default into a new 
user's ~/.inputrc file.

I think you'll have to do it manually...

Randall Schulz
Mountain View, CA USA


At 13:41 2002-01-31, Kevin Roth wrote:
>Speaking from personal experience, I know the DELETE key (not the 
>backspace) has never worked quite right for me under a plain-vanilla 
>cygwin install, inside of bash. I'm not talking about inside of rxvt, but 
>simply in the plain old default command line interface (e.g. the thingy 
>that the Cygwin desktop shortcut runs).
>
>Instead of erasing the character to the right of the cursor (as would 
>happen in any other windows app), I see an extra character inserted into 
>my command line. I think it's "~", but I can't remember for sure right 
>now. This is under Win2k pro, and also WinXP pro.
>
>The backspace key on the other hand has always worked just fine.
>
>All this to say - is there any way the behavior of the delete key could be 
>corrected in a default, plain jane install, to function properly?
>
>(If this has already been discussed and fixed, then I apologize... It's 
>been a couple months since I actually performed a brand new install...)
>
>--Kevin
>
>
>----------
>From: Steve O <bub AT hagbard DOT io DOT com>
>To: cygwin-announce AT sources DOT redhat DOT com
>
>rxvt-2.7.2-8 has been uploaded to the Cygwin net distribution.
>rxvt is a lightweight xterm that can display to either X or
>native Windows.
>
>Changes:
>- Corrected backspace handling.
>   This may cause some unexpected behavior if you have something like
>      stty erase ^H
>   in your profile.  Either removing the stty line or changing it to
>      stty erase ^?
>   may fix the behavior.


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