2.11BSD/src/bin/tcsh/FAQ

Last Updated: Wed Feb 27 17:06:15 EST 1991

This is for people that do not read the manual!

So far people who don't read manuals don't read this either...
I may call it README.*PLEASE* in the future, but then people won't
be able to get it... :-)

1.  Why is the meta key broken in tcsh-5.20? 

    On some machines the tty is not set up to pass 8 bit characters by default.
    Tcsh 5.19 used to try to determine if pass8 should be set by looking at
    the terminal's meta key. Unfortunately there is no good way of determining
    if the terminal can really pass 8 characters or not. Consider if you are
    logged in through a modem line with 7 bits and parity and your terminal 
    has a meta key. Then tcsh 5.19 would set wrongly set pass8.

    If you did like the prevous behavior you can add in /etc/Login, or
    in .login:

    if ( $?prompt ) then
	if ( "`echotc meta`" == "yes" ) then
	     stty pass8
	endif
    endif

    If you don't have pass8, maybe something like

	stty -parity -evenp -oddp cs8 -istrip   (rs6000)
    or
	stty -parenb -istrip cs8 
    
    would work..

2.  I ran 'dbxtool &' and 'shelltool &' from tcsh, and they end up in cbreak 
    and no echo mode?

    These programs are broken. Background jobs should not try to look at the
    tty. What happens is that dbxtool looks in stderr to inherit the tty
    setups, but tcsh sets up the tty in cbreak and -echo modes, so that it
    can do line editing. This cannot be fixed because tcsh cannot give away
    the tty. A work-around is:

    dbxtool < /dev/null >& /dev/null &

3.  I tried to compile tcsh and it cannot find <locale.h>?

    Your system does not support NLS. Undefine NLS in config_f.h and it
    should work fine.

4.  Where can I get csh sources? 

    Csh sources are not public domain. If you do not have an AT&T V3.2 source
    licence or better, you are stuck.

5.  I just made tcsh my login shell, and I cannot ftp any more?

    Newer versions of the ftp daemon check for the validity of the
    user's shell before they allow logins. The list of valid login
    shells is either hardcoded or it is usually in a file called
    /etc/shells. If it is hard-coded, then you are out of luck and
    your best bet is to get a newer version of ftpd. Otherwise add
    tcsh to the list of shells. Remember that the full path is required.
    If there is no /etc/shells, and you are creating one, remember to
    add /bin/csh, /bin/sh, and any other valid shells for your system,
    so that other people can ftp too :-)

6.  I am using SunView and editing is screwed up. In particular my
    arrow keys and backspace don't work right. What am I doing wrong?

    Well, cmdtool tries to do its own command line editing and the
    effect you get is one of using an editor inside an editor. Both
    try to interpret the arrow key sequences and cmdtool wins since
    it gets them first. The solutions are in my order of preference:

	1 Don't use suntools
	2 Use shelltool instead of cmdtool.
	3 Unset edit in tcsh.

7.  I rlogin to another machine, and then no matter what I tell 'stty'
    I cannot get it to pass 8 bit characters?

    Maybe you need to use 'rlogin -8' to tell rlogin to pass 8 
    bit characters.

Everything else is a bug :-(