Re: [doc] LINES/COLUMNS auto-update in non-interactive shells contradicts manual

On 5/11/26 4:06 PM, Zachary Santer wrote:
> On Mon, May 11, 2026 at 3:18 PM Chet Ramey <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> On 5/11/26 1:26 PM, Zachary Santer wrote:
>>>
>>> My work machine is six bash major versions back. I'd still rather
>>> things improve at some point.
>>
>> I think we disagree on whether or not this would be an improvement.
>> More people than not have expressed a desire to have LINES and COLUMNS
>> reflect the true window size.
> 
> Huh? Yeah, I would be one of those people.

Oh, OK. I thought your proposal would have bash unset `checkwinsize' if
it found LINES or COLUMNS in the initial environment.

Since many (most) terminal emulators set LINES and COLUMNS in the
environment they provide to the shell they invoke, and bash exports
variables it finds in its environment, this would effectively disable
any default that had it enabled.

I did a quick survey, and all the terminal emulators on my macOS machine,
and the default Terminal program on a Fedora VM, set LINES and COLUMNS
for the shell when you open a new instance (I don't set them in my
startup files). I don't know exactly how widespread this is, but it seems
like it would create more problems, especially with the default having been
the way it is for so long.

-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
		 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    [email protected]    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/