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Message-ID: <001101c3e40e$5978f440$580210ac@tcgp.dundee.ac.uk>
Reply-To: <fergus AT bonhard DOT uklinux DOT net>
From: <fergus AT bonhard DOT uklinux DOT net>
To: <cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
Cc: <fergus AT bonhard DOT uklinux DOT net>
Subject: Keypress anomaly: maybe locality specific
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 13:14:07 -0000
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Windows XP. The anomaly happens in Cygwin 1.5.6 and 1.5.5 and maybe earlier
still, but I have no way of confirming this ... it's a bit parochial (may be
UK specific, I think) but I'd like to describe it here as, I hope, an easily
identifiable and curable anomaly.

This comes to you from the UK. If I set keyboard= language= everything else=
US within Windows, and operate from the sparsest possible bash console
within Cygwin, everything works fine. The symbols I get on screen don't
quite match what is painted on the keys I pressed, but that's as expected,
because my keyboard is a UK one. Usually it's one-one. In a small number of
cases one ends up playing a kind of connected game of chase, running through
@ and " and also \ and | and ~ before learning what gives what. In
particular <Shift-3> gives the hash symbol #, even though what's painted on
the key is a £ sign (UK pound). I have found no way of actually getting a £
sign, but nor can I get a whole load of other symbols, currency and all
sorts, so this is no surprise.

Now use the Control Panel to change at the Windows level to keyboard=
language= everything else= UK (my standard settings, in fact). Now there's
an exact match between what's painted on the keys and what appears on screen
for all of " and @ and ... and now <Shift-3> gives £, as painted on the key.

It is what I get in Word, at the XP Command Prompt, in Notepad and all the
rest.

I even get it in nano-within-Cygwin and vim-within-Cygwin.

But, oddly, at the bash command line in Cygwin I get not a GB pound sign £;
and not even the hash sign #; but actually a two key combination # + Enter,
so that one gets taken to a new, empty, command line. The hash sign alone is
printed. If I type

    $   789<Shift-3> (don't press Enter)

what I get on screen is

    $   #789
    $

so the hash is printed at the start of the line AND an <Enter> is assumed.

There is probably a level (e.g. "printers") at which an emailed query about
weird behaviour would quite rightly get the response "It's your printer,
you're on your own". I appreciate the somewhat locality-specific nature of
this query, but have I explained it sufficiently to suggest that it
shouldn't be happening, even in a minority situation, and maybe for cause
and cure to be evident to somebody who can implement that cure?

Thank you.

Fergus


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