Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!rpi!rpi.edu!lawrence From: lawrence@its.rpi.edu (David Lawrence) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: Unix deficiencies/problems Message-ID: Date: 8 May 89 04:56:28 GMT References: <810038@hpsemc.HP.COM> <810046@hpsemc.HP.COM> <159@dg.dg.com> <424@algor2.UUCP> <676@dtscp1.UUCP> <1528@cmx.npac.syr.edu> Sender: usenet@rpi.edu Reply-To: tale@pawl.rpi.edu Distribution: comp Lines: 30 In-reply-to: gefuchs@skolem.uucp's message of 7 May 89 20:42:56 GMT In article <1528@cmx.npac.syr.edu> gefuchs@skolem.uucp (Gill E. Fuchs) writes: GEF> well, suppose one types into the read-a-head buffer some 23 commands. GEF> the commands echo immediately, not later in their appropriate location. GEF> has anyone found a panacea for that, by the way? Yes, three shells which I know of all do what you desire (or close to it; read on). Shells which emulate an Emacs- or vi-like interface to the system read their input character at a time. When a character is typed that is meant to be visible, it writes it to the display. So while your command is being execed by the shell, your type-ahead stdin is buffered for the shell. When the shell gets to its stdin reading loop (after the exec and any miscellaneous shell activities), it gets all of those characters you typed and proceeds to interpret/ display them as required. The net effect of this is to have your typed-ahead command displayed where it belongs after your prompt (with occasional characters before the prompt depending on unfortunate timing). The reason I said "close to" up there is because a limitation of at least one of these shells, tcsh, is that you cannot type more than one command ahead because anything after the first is ignored. Rather annoying sometimes, but I like the shell enough otherwise that I can overlook the shortcoming (but if you want to fix it, Paul, I know a few people who wouldn't mind. :-). The other two shells, by the way, are ksh and ecsh. Dave -- tale@rpitsmts.bitnet, tale%mts@itsgw.rpi.edu, tale@pawl.rpi.edu