BOOBY TRAPS?

[Paul Tomblin]

On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 08:26:31 -0600, Ed Wilts <ewilts at ewilts.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 25, 2004 at 12:37:48PM +0800, John Summerfield wrote:
> > On Thursday 25 November 2004 12:13, Ed Wilts, RHCE wrote:
> > > Don't spell the whole BOOBY word out - it's a funky man page display but
> > > you will see the string BOOBY TRAPS there exactly as the original poster
> > > documented.
> >
> > Cute:
> >
> > [root at dugong ~]# man hosts.allow | grep -E BO | xxd
> > 0000000: 4208 424f 084f 4f08 4f42 0842 5908 5920  B.BO.OO.OB.BY.Y
> > 0000010: 5408 5452 0852 4108 4150 0850 5308 530a  T.TR.RA.AP.PS.S.
> > [root at dugong ~]#
> 
> Those will be backspaces I think so that the titles are bolded.  This
> would sense when printed but not a lot of use on a tube.

Except that "less" (which is the usual pager used for man) understands
the concept and bolds them on a display that is capable of bold.

> > I know how to get it left in a terminal window; the question for Arthur is
> > whether this actually explains _his_ circumstances.
> >
> > I'm not convinced, but he may have done something....
> 
> Me neither - I justed pointed out that the string does appear on just
> about everybody's system.


Combine this with the rendering problem that people have been having
with xterm/gnome-terminal , and you could see how detritus from a
previous man session would end up on the screen.  See
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=139294 for
example, or the thread I started here called "ncurses problems".


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