Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 20:07:15 -0500 From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: "Kevin Oberman" <oberman@es.net> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ps & terminal width sensitivity inside a script Message-ID: <15229.49091.240322.495816@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <78662125@toto.iv>
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Kevin Oberman <oberman@es.net> types: > ps(1) is a very old utility dating at least back to the earliest days of > Unix. (It might even date to Multics, but I can't say for sure.) Back > in the days of Teletypes and big honkin' printers. Back in the days > when teletypes were 80 characters wide and line printers 132 > characters wide. Back in the days when there was nothing else. > > The SysV ps(1) started from scratch behaving in a reasonable fashion, > but BSD systems seem forever tied to the bygone days of Teletypes. The BSD ps now defaults to the window width, not 80. If it can't find the window width, it uses 80. w is 132 and ww is unlimited. Personally, I like that behavior. w is pretty much useless these days, but I don't see a lot of reason to change it. As to having that work in scripts - the output of scripts is often viewed by users, so it makes sense to me. <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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