zsh-2.6-beta14 on AIX with login shell problem

zsh-2.6-beta14 on AIX with login shell problem

[Mike Kazda]

There appears to be a problem in AIX 3.2.5 with the 2.6 beta related
to when zsh is a login shell.  Here's my situation, I normally ran ksh,
but switched months ago to use v2.5.03.  I did this rather easily by
adding the following to my .profile read by ksh:

  [ -x /afs/eds/u/kazda/bin/zsh ] && exec /afs/eds/u/kazda/bin/zsh -l

This will re-exec my zsh as a login shell.

Well, when I started trying out the 2.6 beta (starting w/beta13) I noticed
that my cursor keys were interpreted, but things like erase and beginning
of line functions did not move the cursor nor erase the characters,
although the actual buffer was modified correctly.

After further investigation, if I did a 'unsetopt zle' during the session
things went back to normal (cursor moved, chars erased).  So this leads
me to believe that something is wrong with the multi-line edit capabilites
in the beta under AIX.  Please note, with beta14 if I just do a zsh from
the command line, things work properly, although in beta13 they did not.

Does anyone have some insight into the terminal i/o initialization and
why it may be flakey on AIX 3.2.5?  beta14 works fine on AIX 4.1, SunOS 4.1.3,
Solaris 2.4, and HP-UX 9.03 which I've tested it out on (at least in this
respect).

Thanks,
Mike Kazda

Re: zsh-2.6-beta14 on AIX with login shell problem

[Peter Whaite]

kazda@VNET.IBM.COM said:
> 
> Well, when I started trying out the 2.6 beta (starting w/beta13) I noticed
> that my cursor keys were interpreted, but things like erase and beginning
> of line functions did not move the cursor nor erase the characters,
> although the actual buffer was modified correctly.

This might be because the TERM you are using is not installed in the terminfo
data base.

It happened to me on *some* of our IRIX systems, but only when I had TERM set
to an adm31 (when I was using unix windows from home).  I finally twigged that
it worked only on the machines where I had installed an adm31 in
/usr/share/lib/terminfo.  I thought I had this possibility covered because I
used
	export TERMINFO=$HOME/lib/terminfo

to specify my own terminfo database.  Unfortunately this does not by itself
tell zsh to go and take another look for the terminal type.   You have to
follow it with 

	export TERM=$TERM

Maybe someone can tell me of a neater way to get an alternative terminfo data
base to take effect.

Re: zsh-2.6-beta14 on AIX with login shell problem

[Mike Kazda]

>>>>> "Peter" == Peter Whaite <peta@cim.mcgill.ca> writes:

    Peter> This might be because the TERM you are using is not
    Peter> installed in the terminfo data base.

Actually the TERM (xterm in this case) is in the terminfo database in
/usr/lib/terminfo.

    Peter> to specify my own terminfo database.  Unfortunately this
    Peter> does not by itself tell zsh to go and take another look for
    Peter> the terminal type.  You have to follow it with

    Peter>      export TERM=$TERM

    Peter> Maybe someone can tell me of a neater way to get an
    Peter> alternative terminfo data base to take effect.

I just tried a co-worker's terminfo database using TERMINFO in my
..profile BEFORE I exec the zsh beta process.  All I set was the
TERMINFO variable and did not have to export TERM=$TERM as you've
indicated.

Using his database, it works correctly.  I can't really explain it,
all he added was a few keypad and function key entries to the end of
the xterm:

        knp=\E[6~, kpp=\E[5~,
        kf5=\E[15~, kf6=\E[17~, kf7=\E[18~, kf8=\E[19~, kf9=\E[20~,
        kf10=\E[21~, kf11=\E[23~, kf12=\E[24~,

I don't see how this affects the difference I've seen on v2.5.03 and
the v2.6-beta14.  There must be some difference in the code that I'm
seeing, but I'm not well versed in it to locate it.

Mike

Re: zsh-2.6-beta14 on AIX with login shell problem

[Peter Whaite]

kazda@VNET.IBM.COM said:
> 
> I just tried a co-worker's terminfo database using TERMINFO in my
> ..profile BEFORE I exec the zsh beta process.  All I set was the
> TERMINFO variable and did not have to export TERM=$TERM as you've
> indicated.

Oh you dont have to reset TERM if you get TERMINFO into the environment before
starting a new shell, only if you want to change it in the current shell,
e.g. in .zshenv.  I forgot to add I think that I am back at 2.5b10, still
waiting for an official release before reinstalling.

> Using his database, it works correctly.  I can't really explain it, all he
> added was a few keypad and function key entries to the end of the xterm ...
> ... I don't see how this affects the difference I've seen on v2.5.03 and the
> v2.6-beta14.  There must be some difference in the code that I'm seeing, but
> I'm not well versed in it to locate it.

Does pointing TERMINFO to the standard data base work? How about to one which
has a copy of the standard data base's xterm?

Re: zsh-2.6-beta14 on AIX with login shell problem

[Mike Kazda]

>>>>> "Peter" == Peter Whaite <peta@cim.mcgill.ca> writes:

    Peter> Does pointing TERMINFO to the standard data base work? How
    Peter> about to one which has a copy of the standard data base's
    Peter> xterm?

I tried doing TERMINFO=/usr/lib/termcap and it did not work.  This one
does containg the OS's "standard" xterm definitions.  I believe that
this is defaulted to in some code if you don't set the TERMINFO
variable.

Actually, after some more investigation, I believe it is the TERMCAP
in /etc/termcap which is messed instead of TERMINFO.  I was also
setting TERMCAP to point to my co-worker's TERMCAP which does have
'xterm' in it.

I wonder if there are any other AIX 3.2 users out there who've tried
the beta.  If so, please chime in.  I'd really like to solve this.

Mike

Re: zsh-2.6-beta14 on AIX with login shell problem

[Zoltan Hidvegi]

> I wonder if there are any other AIX 3.2 users out there who've tried
> the beta.  If so, please chime in.  I'd really like to solve this.

Well, I can use the beta on AIX but not without AIX specific hacks:

egervary ~/zsh.egervary/Src % uname -a
AIX egervary 2 3 000012967600
egervary ~/zsh.egervary/Src % echo $ZSH_VERSION 
2.6-beta13-hzoli13

And my .zshrc contains this:

case "$OSTYPE" in
    aix*)
        if [[ "$TERM" = xterm* && "$#TERMCAP" -lt 100 ]] then
                unset TERMCAP
                TERM=xterm
                unsetopt singlelinezle
        fi
        ;;
[...]

So the problem is that the TERMCAP variable contains some unusable
information.  This problem is not specific to zsh.  We had problems with
other applications as well (but I know no morw details).  I'm not at all
sure that this problem will be fixed in the next stable release.

The most perfect solution is avoiding AIX :-).  We have 7 different Unix
flavours here so anyone can choose.  There are a lot of troubles with AIX
and this TERMCAP anomaly is only the smallest one.

Bye,

Zoltan

Re: zsh-2.6-beta14 on AIX with login shell problem

[Jos Backus]

In message <9604221714.AA18650@rumor.fishkill.ibm.com> you wrote:
>I wonder if there are any other AIX 3.2 users out there who've tried
>the beta.  If so, please chime in.  I'd really like to solve this.

Fyi, as of beta14 configure still finds '-ltermcap' instead of '-lcurses' on
AIX. You can try relinking with curses and see if that helps...

Cheers,
Jos
--
Jos Backus           _/  _/_/_/                                 R-IS/SNB
                    _/  _/   _/                       Oce-Nederland B.V.
                   _/  _/_/_/                     Venlo, The Netherlands
             _/   _/  _/    _/
jos@oce.nl    _/_/   _/_/_/                  #include <std/disclaimer.h>

Re: zsh-2.6-beta14 on AIX with login shell problem

[Mike Kazda]

>>>>> "Jos" == Jos Backus <jos@oce.nl> writes:

    Jos> Fyi, as of beta14 configure still finds '-ltermcap' instead
    Jos> of '-lcurses' on AIX. You can try relinking with curses and
    Jos> see if that helps...

Aha!  That did it!  It seems that when zsh uses -lcurses it works
correctly.  Maybe the 'configure.in' file should be changed to prefer
SysV curses library over the BSD termcap library.  Hint,
hint.. Richard how do you feel about making this change?

Here's the patch for making zsh check for curses before termcap:

--- configure.in.orig   Mon Apr 15 01:32:58 1996
+++ configure.in        Tue Apr 23 11:28:34 1996
@@ -217,8 +217,8 @@
 dnl -------------------
 dnl CHECK FOR LIBRARIES
 dnl -------------------
-dnl Prefer BSD termcap library to SysV curses library.
-for lib in termcap curses ncurses; do
+dnl Prefer SysV curses library to BSD termcap library.
+for lib in curses ncurses termcap; do
   AC_CHECK_LIB($lib, tgetent, [LIBS="$LIBS -l$lib"; break])
 done

Mike

Re: zsh-2.6-beta14 on AIX with login shell problem

[Mike Kazda]

>>>>> "Zefram" == Zefram  <A.Main@dcs.warwick.ac.uk> writes:

    >> Aha!  That did it!  It seems that when zsh uses -lcurses it
    >> works correctly.  Maybe the 'configure.in' file should be
    >> changed to prefer SysV curses library over the BSD termcap
    >> library.  Hint, hint.. Richard how do you feel about making
    >> this change?

    Zefram> But we don't *use* curses, only termcap, and on many
    Zefram> systems libcurses doesn't include libtermcap (you need
    Zefram> them both to get working curses).  I think termcap should
    Zefram> still be preferred, but a kludge to recognise systems
    Zefram> where it's actually broken would be appropriate.

In that case, I agree.  Here's a patch to kludge the preference order
of termcap and curses for AIX 3.2.5.  It will replace my other one.
Please consider this one instead for inclusion.

--- configure.in.orig   Mon Apr 15 01:32:58 1996
+++ configure.in        Tue Apr 23 13:53:14 1996
@@ -217,8 +217,17 @@
 dnl -------------------
 dnl CHECK FOR LIBRARIES
 dnl -------------------
-dnl Prefer BSD termcap library to SysV curses library.
-for lib in termcap curses ncurses; do
+dnl Prefer BSD termcap library to SysV curses library, except on aix3.2.5
+dnl  On aix3.2.5:
+dnl  It appears that the curses library works properly with installed
+dnl  configuration instead of the termcap library, both are shared and
+dnl  include termcap.
+if test `echo $host_os | sed 's/^.*\(aix3.2.5\)/\1/'` = aix3.2.5; then
+  termcap_curses_order="curses ncurses termcap"
+else
+  termcap_curses_order="termcap curses ncurses"
+fi
+for lib in $termcap_curses_order; do
   AC_CHECK_LIB($lib, tgetent, [LIBS="$LIBS -l$lib"; break])
 done

    Zefram> The best solution would be for sysadmins to fix broken
    Zefram> terminfo libraries.

Actually I don't think that's the best solution.  If sysadmins muck
with the system configuration and then install a new patch or update,
chances are the customizations will get overwritten.  What really
needs to be done is to fix the messed up terminfo stuff in an update
to AIX or whatever.  Then everyone can get this fixed.

Mike

Re: zsh-2.6-beta14 on AIX with login shell problem

[Richard Coleman]

>     Jos> Fyi, as of beta14 configure still finds '-ltermcap' instead
>     Jos> of '-lcurses' on AIX. You can try relinking with curses and
>     Jos> see if that helps...
> 
> Aha!  That did it!  It seems that when zsh uses -lcurses it works
> correctly.  Maybe the 'configure.in' file should be changed to prefer
> SysV curses library over the BSD termcap library.  Hint,
> hint.. Richard how do you feel about making this change?

I'll have to check that on a couple of machines around here and
see what happens.  My guess is that this change will fix AIX but
screw up some other architectures.  It's a no-win situation.
I'll probably have to add some more architecture dependent checks.

rc

Re: zsh-2.6-beta14 on AIX with login shell problem

[Jos Backus]

    Hi Mike, all,

In message <9604231758.AA16361@rumor.fishkill.ibm.com> you wrote:
>Actually I don't think that's the best solution.  If sysadmins muck
>with the system configuration and then install a new patch or update,
>chances are the customizations will get overwritten.  What really
>needs to be done is to fix the messed up terminfo stuff in an update
>to AIX or whatever.  Then everyone can get this fixed.

It would appear that this has been fixed in AIX 4.1.4. After linking with
termcap things seem to work just fine.


Groetjes,
Jos
--
Jos Backus           _/  _/_/_/                                 R-IS/SNB
                    _/  _/   _/                       Oce-Nederland B.V.
                   _/  _/_/_/                     Venlo, The Netherlands
             _/   _/  _/    _/
jos@oce.nl    _/_/   _/_/_/                  #include <std/disclaimer.h>

zsh-2.6-beta14 on IRIX fails to compile

[Andreas Koenig]

I'm only resubscribed to the list (workers) for 3 days, so I have to
apologize if I repeat known stuff.

zle_tricky.c fails to compile with either gcc or cc:

gcc
---

gcc -c -I.. -I. -I.  -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -Wall -Wno-implicit -Wmissing-prototypes -fwritable-strings -O2 zle_tricky.c
zle_tricky.c: In function `maketildelist':
zle_tricky.c:1684: too few arguments to function


cc
--

cfe: Error: zle_tricky.c, line 1684: The number of arguments doesn't agree with the number in the declaration.
     nameddirtab->filltable();
 --------------------------^


I compiled beta 13 with gcc without problems. any hints before I start
to dig into it?

(This is from an irix 5.3)

Thanks,
andreas

Re: zsh-2.6-beta14 on IRIX fails to compile

[Richard Coleman]

> I'm only resubscribed to the list (workers) for 3 days, so I have to
> apologize if I repeat known stuff.
> 
> zle_tricky.c fails to compile with either gcc or cc:
> 

just change 

nameddirtab->filltable();

to

nameddirtab->filltable(nameddirtab);

It was a typo.  I'll probably release beta15 in the
next couple of days, since so many people have asked
about this bug.

rc