Re: Tabstop width not reset by reset command, or hardcoded to wrong width

[Vincent Huisman]

On 29-05-2019 15:04, Thomas Dickey wrote:

> Here's a test-script which shows the expected behavior.

I ran it with SecureCRT on TERM=linux (its default). I used konsole on 
Kubuntu 19.04 to ssh to my Gentoo box (which has hard tabs) and I get 
TERM=xterm-256color. Additionally, I tested konsole on Kubuntu itself 
(also xterm-256color) where I didn't have any issue because it uses soft 
tabs by default.

> It shows
>         + tab-stops after reset
>         + tab-stops after "tabs -4"
>         + does a reset
>         + shows that the tab-stops are set back to 8.

The last output of the script is:
Tabs 8:
----+----1----+----2----+----3
        *       *       *
    +   +   +   +   +   +   +
...done
on all three, SecureCRT and konsole, Gentoo and Kubuntu. Testing on the 
machine itself (ctrl+alt+f2, TERM=linux) I do see that my testcase works 
as expected, as does yours. Interestingly, after running yours, "tabs" 
has no effect anymore until I issue a reset.

Anyway, so it looks like it's a bug in both SecureCRT as well as 
konsole. I just wasn't expecting two different products in different 
setups to give the same result.  The presence of the tabstops-code in 
reset_cmd.c made me think that it was supposed to be called always but 
you're saying that it's the terminal's responsibility when it sees 
reset_1string. That was a bit unclear to me, but it makes sense now. And 
I've seen a terminal actually do it now.

> If I were to make _any_ change in ncurses to accommodate konsole,
> it would be in _its_ terminal descriptions, not for "linux" or
> "xterm-256color".

I don't know why I get xterm by default but it should be konsole, I 
agree. Although with TERM=konsole it doesn't even clear the screen (and 
the tabs are still wrong) so that's not usable either.

I already worked around all of it with alias reset="reset; tabs n" in a 
custom function that modifies the terminal to whatever tabwidth I want. 
I'll have a closer look at konsole and SecureCRT, and maybe file reports 
there. Thanks for your info :)

Sincerely,

Vincent Huisman