From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Apr 3 11:32:34 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D4D0F1065673 for ; Thu, 3 Apr 2008 11:32:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from gavin@FreeBSD.org) Received: from mail-gw0.york.ac.uk (mail-gw0.york.ac.uk [144.32.128.245]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 66D598FC26 for ; Thu, 3 Apr 2008 11:32:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from gavin@FreeBSD.org) Received: from mail-gw6.york.ac.uk (mail-gw6.york.ac.uk [144.32.129.26]) by mail-gw0.york.ac.uk (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id m33B1ZId004511; Thu, 3 Apr 2008 12:01:36 +0100 (BST) Received: from buffy-128.york.ac.uk ([144.32.128.160] helo=buffy.york.ac.uk) by mail-gw6.york.ac.uk with esmtps (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1JhNCJ-0003la-UZ; Thu, 03 Apr 2008 12:01:35 +0100 Received: from buffy.york.ac.uk (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by buffy.york.ac.uk (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id m33B1ZUY044730; Thu, 3 Apr 2008 12:01:35 +0100 (BST) (envelope-from gavin@FreeBSD.org) Received: (from ga9@localhost) by buffy.york.ac.uk (8.14.2/8.14.2/Submit) id m33B1ZPN044729; Thu, 3 Apr 2008 12:01:35 +0100 (BST) (envelope-from gavin@FreeBSD.org) X-Authentication-Warning: buffy.york.ac.uk: ga9 set sender to gavin@FreeBSD.org using -f From: Gavin Atkinson To: ash@contact.bg In-Reply-To: <1207216032.47f4a7a067cca@www.contact.bg> References: <1207216032.47f4a7a067cca@www.contact.bg> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2008 12:01:34 +0100 Message-Id: <1207220495.29480.92.camel@buffy.york.ac.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.10.1 FreeBSD GNOME Team Port X-York-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-York-MailScanner-From: gavin@freebsd.org Cc: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Question regarding the tabs utility plus xterm in FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2008 11:32:34 -0000 On Thu, 2008-04-03 at 11:47 +0200, ash@contact.bg wrote: > Hi everybody, > > I would like to ask about the behaviour of the tabs utility in FreeBSD and xterm. > > I am the coordinator for Gnome translations in Bulgarian but I have experience > mostly with Fedora and none with FreeBSD. > > Some of the translation output that goes to a terminal contains tabs. (ASCII 9 - > Horizontal Tabs). > > I found out that FreeBSD contains an implementation of the POSIX tabs utility > which should be able to change tab positions. > > I do not have access to a FreeBSD install (much less - one with xterm) and hoped > that someone could help me find out whether it is possible to change the tabs in > a xterm session (or the FreeBSD console) so that when a file containing tabs is > output - the tabs will be spaced differently than the usual default (which at > least at my machine is 8 spaces) In an xterm, it works: % hexdump -C tabfile 00000000 61 09 62 0a |a.b.| 00000004 % cat tabfile a b % tabs 6 % cat tabfile a b This doesn't seem to work on a system console though, the tabs command fails with "tabs: terminal cannot clear tabs" and a return value of 1. Gavin