Re: color codes in eshell

[John Wiegley <johnw@gnu.org>]

Alexander Nikolov <alexander@ip217-30.mnet.bg> writes:

> I am very enthusiastic about using a shell from inside emacs but I
> find eshell has some frustrating weaknesses. First, the
> documentation is far from complete. Second, I have this problem
> with color codes: When I log in as a normal user everything is
> displayed correctly. However, when I am root color codes are
> displayed as numbers and letters in between the useful text. There
> is no shell history in root mode, either. I hope this can be fixed
> with some lisp code but sadly I have very limited knowledge of the
> language and the implementation in emacs.  Suggestions?

Well, the truth is:

 1. The manual has not been written.

 2. Eshell is not a terminal emulator, so it does not attempt to
    handle terminal escapes.  You can try using ansi-color.el to
    achieve this effect, but I am doubtful it will work as you
    desire.

 3. Eshell does not try to manage the prompts of external processes
    (i.e., like when you run "su").  That is shell.el's job, and you
    should run "M-x shell" when you want a root session using an
    external shell.

John