From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Received: from Princeton.EDU ([128.112.128.1]) by archone.tamu.edu with SMTP id <45333>; Sat, 8 Feb 1992 15:34:12 -0600
Received: from and.Princeton.EDU by Princeton.EDU (5.65b/2.85/princeton)
	id AA27407; Sat, 8 Feb 92 16:33:13 -0500
Received: by math.princeton.edu (4.0/1.110)
	id AA23376; Sat, 8 Feb 92 16:33:11 EST
Date: Sat, 8 Feb 1992 15:33:11 -0600
Message-Id: <9202082133.AA23376@math.princeton.edu>
From: rjc@math.Princeton.EDU (Raymond Chen)
To: rc@archone.tamu.edu
Subject: Re: Ctrl-L in editline

malte@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de claims that Ctrl-L should clear the entire
screen instead of merely redrawing the current line.

I forcefully disagree.  Why should Ctrl-L clear the screen?  Ctrl-L in
emacs, vi, and most curses-based programs is the ``redraw current
screen'' command, not the ``clear current screen'' command.  Since
editline's ``screen'' is but a single line, it should redraw only that
line.

Imagine:  I've just received a `talk' request.  My friend Byron is
coming in from a machine I've never seen before with a complicated
name, so I have to type his address in very carefully.

    talk tbrakitz@phoe

and *BLAM* some line noise hits my modem.  I want to get rid of the line
noise, so I type Ctrl-L to get readline to reprint my current command.
But wait, that Ctrl-L also zapped my current screen!  Ugh, that also
erased byron's address!  I'm hosed!

If you want the screen to clear, type ``clear''.  Thank you.

ObRcHack:  Set your prompt to

    prompt = ('; ' ':\010')

This way, continuation lines are prompted with a `:', but the `:'
is erased by your typing.  You get the benefit of a prompt (to let
you know you miscounted your quotation marks), yet the prompt doesn't
stop you from snarfing-and-barfing.  (If you want to type a blank
line, remember to type `space backspace enter' instead.)