Re: lib/58151: Should Curses getnstr() family handle erase and kill characters when input is not a tty?

[David Holland <dholland-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR lib/58151; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: David Holland <dholland-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost>
To: gnats-bugs%netbsd.org@localhost
Cc: 
Subject: Re: lib/58151: Should Curses getnstr() family handle erase and kill
 characters when input is not a tty?
Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2024 02:36:31 +0000

 On Tue, Apr 16, 2024 at 02:10:02AM +0000, David Holland wrote:
  >  One could argue that getnstr/mvgetnstr in cbreak mode should handle
  >  simple line editing, but it does not, and there are problems with
  >  doing so. (For example: how simple? Tty cooked mode editing is fairly
  >  straightforward, but also not particularly useful or adequate since
  >  it's no longer 1983, but anything more complicated gets into religious
  >  questions like whether you should move to the beginning of the line
  >  with ^A or esc-^-i or what.)
 
 Hmm. I take it back, apparently it does. This behavior is
 undocumented, and that's a bug. It's also lacking support for werase.
 And EOF, and REPRINT. And what about STATUS? Or INTR/QUIT/SUSP?
 
 The whole thing seems like a can of worms and a mistake, if you ask
 me.
 
 Anyway, it appears that if curses thinks it's not on a tty, both
 erasechar() and killchar() return 0. What happens if you send 0 down
 the pipe? If that causes an erase, and it looks like it will, that
 seems like undesirable behavior and erasechar() ought to default to ^H
 or ^? when not on a tty. (But, which?)
 
 -- 
 David A. Holland
 dholland%netbsd.org@localhost