Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!uwm.edu!lll-winken!gauss.llnl.gov
From: casey@gauss.llnl.gov (Casey Leedom)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Should the X11 library install DISPLAY in the environment?
Message-ID: <69430@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
Date: 8 Oct 90 13:55:23 GMT
Sender: usenet@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lines: 45


I execute xrn out of my twm menu via:

	!"rsh gauss.llnl.gov -n xrn -display $RDISPLAY \
		'</dev/null' '>&/dev/null' '&' &"

This means that the environment that xrn inherits is very sparse.  Ex:

	HOME=/u0/casey
	PATH=/u0/casey/bin:/usr/local/bin/mh:/usr/local/bin/X11:...
	PWD=/u0/casey
	SHELL=/bin/csh
	USER=casey

	(In fact I only get a PATH because I moved my csh ``set path =
	...'' out of the ``if ($?prompt) then ... endif'' interactive csh
	commands section.)

Note that, in particular, DISPLAY isn't defined ...  This means that my
xrn.editorCommand of ``xterm -e ...'' fails because xterm inherits that
same sparse environment from xrn so xterm can't figure out what my
display is.

  My question is: should XOpenDisplay or XtInitialize or some other X11
connection initialization routine pump DISPLAY into the environment?  If
it did, then xrn opening a connection to the display would cause DISPLAY
to be put into the environment solving my problem.

  In any case, I've decided to do two things for now:

    1.	Change my twm menu entry to:

	!"rsh gauss.llnl.gov -n setenv DISPLAY $RDISPLAY \; \
		xrn -display $RDISPLAY \
		'</dev/null' '>&/dev/null' '&' &"

    2.	Modify and submit a bug fix to xrdb to add DISPLAY as one of the
	xrdb supplied defines.  SERVERHOST isn't good enough since I have
	a GraphOn OptimaX at home which might start up with almost any
	display number.

	This will allow me to specify my xrn.editorCommand as ``xterm
	-display DISPLAY -e ...'' in my xrdb loaded resources.

Casey