color codes in eshell

color codes in eshell

[Alexander Nikolov]

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?

I am using Mandrake 9.0

Re: color codes in eshell

[John Wiegley]

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

Re: color codes in eshell

[Daniel Jensen]

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?

Try adding "su" to `eshell-visual-commands'. It'll make su open in a
terminal emulation buffer, which will hopefully be able to interpret
the color codes correctly. I suppose it will also make the (bash?)
history available to you.

-- 
Daniel Jensen
$ (format (concat "mailto:" "%s@%s.%s") "daniel" "bigwalter" "net")