Line wrap in xterm/bash

Question

This is my environment :

X server : VCXsrv Windows
Window manager : XFCE/WSL
bash : 5.0.0(1)-release
Environment variable TERM : xterm

When I type a command longer than the width of xterm, the line scrolls horizontally instead of wrapping the line, like

<lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

Some online articles suggest following command :

bind 'set horizontal-scroll-mode off'

but it didn't fix the issue in my context.

What else can I try to troubleshoot ?

Update 1:

bash-5.0$ printf "%s\n" "$PS1"
\s-\v\$

Update 2:

/bin$ tput up
tput: unknown terminfo capability 'up'

Related questions are https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/525477/5132 and https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/529377/5132 . — JdeBP, Sep 19 '20 at 10:12
@JdeBP, I looked at those two questions before I made the post. Apart from above bind command, what else can I try ? — Philippe, Sep 19 '20 at 10:45
Have you checked the TERM variable? If it's wrong then off will not work. — Kamil Maciorowski, Sep 19 '20 at 10:51
@KamilMaciorowski As I said in post, TERM=xterm. I tried other values as well, like xterm-256color, or ansi, vt100, etc. — Philippe, Sep 19 '20 at 10:58
OK, we know it's xterm; but does your machine know what xterm means? — Kamil Maciorowski, Sep 19 '20 at 11:06
@KamilMaciorowski I ran infocmp xterm, and got xterm|xterm-debian|X11 terminal emulator ... Do I need to check anything in particular in that output ? — Philippe, Sep 19 '20 at 11:16
@KamilMaciorowski Thanks anyway! My apologies for not putting the full bind command in the first place. — Philippe, Sep 19 '20 at 12:12
Hummm... is the "<" seen at the beginning of the line actually standing for your prompt ? If yes, could you post the output of echo $PS1 ? — MC68020, Sep 19 '20 at 12:37
When you ran bind 'set horizontal-scroll-mode off' did you get any message or error returned? For a bash shell using readline it should be the right solution, which is what's puzzling me — Chris Davies, Sep 19 '20 at 13:24
@Philippe "infocmp xterm ... Do I need to check anything in particular in that output ?" Yes, look for am (automatic right margin) — , Sep 19 '20 at 13:35
@user414777 First line does contain am : am, bce, km, mc5i, mir, msgr, npc, xenl, — Philippe, Sep 19 '20 at 13:50
It may also be that bash is unable to get the height of the terminal and decides that your terminal has a single line. That could also cause it to horiz-scroll instead of wrap. — , Sep 19 '20 at 13:58
@Philippe have you tried putting set horizontal-scroll-mode off in ~/.inputrc and starting a new shell? — peterph, Sep 19 '20 at 13:59
@peterph I did put set horizontal-scroll-mode off in ~/.inputrc and starting a new shell. — Philippe, Sep 19 '20 at 14:09
@user414777 variables LINES=24, COLUMNS=80 are in line with tput lines, and tput columns — Philippe, Sep 19 '20 at 14:11
What you should be asking the questioner to [edit] into the question is what tput up | hexdump yields. https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/567575/5132 — JdeBP, Sep 20 '20 at 10:17
@JdeBP tput up yields tput: unknown terminfo capability 'up' — Philippe, Sep 20 '20 at 10:44

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 20 '20 at 17:51

1

Finally I got 5.0.18(1)-release source from github, compiled it which fixed the problem.

answered Sep 20 '20 at 17:51

Philippe

1,435

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 01 '21 at 12:25

0

I'm running Linux Mint, and Bash 4.4.20 is installed by default.

I had manually compiled and installed Bash 5.0 and ran into the OP's rendering problem.

Upgrading to Bash 5.1 solved this rendering problem for me.

answered Apr 01 '21 at 12:25

jmrah

101

Line wrap in xterm/bash

2 Answers2