completion while su-ing in eshell

completion while su-ing in eshell

[lorint.hendschel]

Hi,

In eshell, when I su to root or another user, tab completion acts
strange: nothing is echoed except the tab, yet completion works, i.e.
if I hit enter after this:

# ls G______  

, I can actually see the contents of directory GNUstep.  In addition,
M-p and M-n to browse through the command history do not work.

Google shows that someone posted the same question 1 year ago, but
there was no answer.

I use Emacs 21.2-1, eshell 2.4.2 on Debian/Gnu/Linux Woody.

Thanks for any hint.

Lorint

Re: completion while su-ing in eshell

[John Wiegley]

>>>>> On Sat Oct 19, lorint writes:

> Hi, In eshell, when I su to root or another user, tab completion
> acts strange: nothing is echoed except the tab, yet completion
> works, i.e.  if I hit enter after this:

> # ls G______

> , I can actually see the contents of directory GNUstep.  In
> addition, M-p and M-n to browse through the command history do not
> work.

> Google shows that someone posted the same question 1 year ago, but
> there was no answer.

The answer is: Eshell is not a terminal emulator.  It does not
attempt to interpret control characters sent from/to externally
invoked programs.  So, TAB is just TAB.

Now, you can try setting `eshell-send-direct-to-subprocesses' to t,
in which case the TAB will be sent immediately to the subprocess.
If that process handles TAB, then it will provide its own
completion.  This command does not always do what you expect, so it
will require some experimentation.

You can also try adding the command to `eshell-visual-commands'.
This will run it in an "ansi term" buffer, which also communicates
directly with the subprocess.  I use this for "ssh", for example.

John