Less not working in terminal window

Iskendar · 12-22-2006, 07:54 AM

Hi all,

My problem is this: 'less' doesn't function properly when executed in
any X terminal application. I tried konsole, gnome-terminal and xterm,
all with the same result: a blank window with two lines at the bottom:

Code:

ESC]2;myname@mymachine:/home/myname/^GESC]1;mymachine^G
  textfilename (END)

When I log into a non-X session however, less works just fine. 'More'
and 'nano' work without problems as well, X-terminal or not. Any idea
on what might cause this?

teckk · 12-22-2006, 03:56 PM

http://linuxcommand.org/man_pages/less1.html

Post how you are trying to run less. Maybee Syntax prob?

I assume you mean less functions while CLI but not in Xterm in X?

pixellany · 12-22-2006, 04:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teckk

http://linuxcommand.org/man_pages/less1.html
Post how you are trying to run less. Maybee Syntax prob?

And on what kind of file?......eg do less and more behave differently when encountering binary files?

Iskendar · 01-17-2007, 07:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teckk

http://linuxcommand.org/man_pages/less1.html

Post how you are trying to run less. Maybee Syntax prob?

Code:

less textfile.txt

Don't see how I could get syntax problems with that. The behaviour is the same whether I'm
running in tcsh or in bash, by the way.

Quote:

Originally Posted by teckk

I assume you mean less functions while CLI but not in Xterm in X?

Yes.

Iskendar · 01-17-2007, 07:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pixellany

And on what kind of file?......eg do less and more behave differently when encountering binary files?

On plain ascii text files. Less outputs the same 2 lines as it does with a text file (with
the binary's filename substituted of course), whereas more behaves as expected: some characters
and a lot of empty space. In other words, again more works, less doesn't.
I am used to using less by the way, have done so for years, it's not as if it's rocket science.
It's just that on this pc, with this setup,it doesn't work when running in an xterm.

Emerson · 01-17-2007, 07:39 AM

This probably has something to do with your X server and locale settings. I'm not proficient in this particular area, all I can tell you is I've encountered similar problems after switching to UTF-8. I use a source based distro so I was able to solve my problems by re-configuring and re-compiling offending programs.

Iskendar · 02-16-2007, 06:26 AM

Ok, found out some more: the origin of the error is located in .tcshrc (yes, we use tcsh).
It's in this piece of code:

Code:

 
 if ( $term == "xterm" ) then 
          rs
          rs
          alias cwdcmd 'echo -n "\033]2;${USER}@${HOST}:$cwd\007\033]1;${HOST}\007"'
          cwdcmd
 else
          unalias cwdcmd
 endif

with "rs" an alias for "eval `resize`". It puts "myname@myhost:/home/myhome" in the terminal header,
and is obviously responsible for the weird error message when running less. What I don't get is why
cwdcmd is run at all when less is opened, does less behave like an xterm session for some odd reason?
I'd think cwdcmd would be run once, when the xterm is started, and that's it. Weird.

Commenting out this bit solves the problem, frankly I don't get the use of this code anyway (though
the header bit is neat to have). I'll probably be switching to bash anyway, much easier for scripting.
Thanks for the help all (here and at fedoraforum).