bug#25553: tabs still dont work 8 years after last ticket activity?

Paul Eggert <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.comp.gnu.core-utils.bugs
Organization UCLA Computer Science Department
Message-ID <[email protected]>
On 2025-07-20 12:23, Kent Dorfman wrote:
> 
> In my old age I decided to start coding with tabs instead of "four 
> spaces" so I set TABSIZE=4 in my shell and mostly my editors and xterms 
> are OK with it.  However, there are some xterm window geometries that 
> break column alignment for the (ls) command (especially with long 
> filenames).  I built the latest coreutils from source and the problem 
> still remains...after eight years or ticket inactivity?  First noticed 
> this problem with Debian11 using coreutils8.3

I can't reproduce the problem with coreutils 9.7, the current version.

Please try the following:

* Run "tabs -4" *after* changing the xterm window size.

* Upgrade to Coreutils 9.7.

* Run 'stty -a' and make sure its output agrees with the actual xterm 
size. Also, make sure it outputs the capability "tab0".

* Use GDB on 'ls' and investigate what values it assigns the variables 
'line_length' and 'tabsize'.

If all those check out but you still see the problem, I'll have more 
suggestions.
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