Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!encore!xenna!loverso
From: loverso@xenna.Encore.COM (John Robert LoVerso)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Just 8 bits out
Message-ID: <3985@encore.UUCP>
Date: 24 Oct 88 20:41:37 GMT
References: <10346@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> <666@mtxinu.UUCP> <326@pvab.UUCP> <17@auspex.UUCP>
Sender: news@encore.UUCP
Reply-To: loverso@xenna.UUCP (John Robert LoVerso)
Organization: Encore Computer Corp, Marlboro, MA
Lines: 18

In article <17@auspex.UUCP> guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris) writes:
> In 4.3BSD you can turn on PASS8 which will give you 8-bit character
> input.  However, you still can't get 8-bit output without turning other
> output processing off.
> 
> ...Setting PASS8 in SunOS 4.0 gives you 8 bits in both directions.

Unfortunately, 4.3BSD (and SunOS up to 3.5) has a bug in the implementation
of PASS8.  Cooked input liternal next processing `quotes' a character
by setting the 8th bit.  Thus, by turning on PASS8 and then inputing
something innocuous like ^Vx, a read will really return 'x'|0200.  This
makes PASS8 somewhat useless for input of multi-lingual character sets,
not to mention making the csh/sh barf (they expect 7 bits only).

This isn't fixed in 4.3BSD-Tahoe.  It is SunOS4.0.

John Robert LoVerso, Encore Computer Corp
encore!loverso, loverso@Encore.COM