problems with 'rm -i'

problems with 'rm -i'

[Louis-David Mitterrand]

Using Debian 1.2, zsh 3.0.2 in an rxvt I've got a strange problem: after
a while the 'rm -i' (actually it's 'rm' since it is aliased to 'rm -i')
stops working... That is: it dosen't even prompt me for confirmation of
removal and dosen't remove anything. 'rm -f' still works though. If I
restart the terminal it works again for a while. Strange...

I suspect it might be terminal thing because sometimes the removal
confirmations prompts are printed when I hit <return> but I can't answer
them, I am put directly at the next shell prompt.

retriever:~/tmp/biss/lib/jas% rm *.java
rm: remove `AsciiCP.java'? rm: remove `CP.java'? rm: remove `CatchEntry.java'? rm: remove `Catchtable.java'? rm: remove `ClassCP.java'? rm: remove `ClassEnv.java'? rm: remove `CodeAttr.java'? rm: remove `ConstAttr.java'? rm: remove `DoubleCP.java'? rm: remove `ExceptAttr.java'? rm: remove `FieldCP.java'? rm: remove `FloatCP.java'? rm: remove `GenericAttr.java'? rm: remove `IincInsn.java'? rm: remove `Insn.java'? rm: remove `InsnOperand.java'? rm: remove `IntegerCP.java'? rm: remove `InterfaceCP.java'? rm: remove `InvokeinterfaceInsn.java'? rm: remove `Label.java'? rm: remove `LineTableAttr.java'? rm: remove `LocalVarEntry.java'? rm: remove `LocalVarTableAttr.java'? rm: remove `LongCP.java'? rm: remove `LookupswitchInsn.java'? rm: remove `Method.java'? rm: remove `MethodCP.java'? rm: remove `MultiarrayInsn.java'? rm: remove `NameTypeCP.java'? rm: remove `SourceAttr.java'? rm: remove `StringCP.java'? rm: remove `TableswitchInsn.java'? rm: remove `Vretriever:~/tmp/biss/lib/jas%   

The same kind of problem happens when I try '< some_file' , if the file
exceeds the terminal length 'more' dosen't display and I get only the
first page of the file before being bounced back to the prompt. Again if
I restart a fresh rxvt it dosen't happen anymore for a while.

Thanks for any help.

-- 

     Louis-David Mitterrand
     (Formula 1): http://www.zoom.com/mito/
     (Java page): http://www.zoom.com/mito/quote/
     mito@sprynet.com 

Re: problems with 'rm -i'

[Zefram]

Louis-David Mitterrand wrote:
>Using Debian 1.2, zsh 3.0.2 in an rxvt I've got a strange problem: after
>a while the 'rm -i' (actually it's 'rm' since it is aliased to 'rm -i')
>stops working... That is: it dosen't even prompt me for confirmation of
>removal and dosen't remove anything. 'rm -f' still works though. If I
>restart the terminal it works again for a while. Strange...
>
>I suspect it might be terminal thing because sometimes the removal
>confirmations prompts are printed when I hit <return> but I can't answer
>them, I am put directly at the next shell prompt.

Is it possible that you are executing a shell command that loses the
original stdin?  Something like

exec < /dev/null

would have the effects you describe.  You would still be able to enter
shell commands normally, as zsh reads directly from the terminal,
without using stdin.

-zefram