Re: Terminal width for help output

Joshua D. Drake wrote:
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> On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 16:04:46 -0500
> Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>
> > Peter Eisentraut <peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net> writes:
> > > Do we care to maintain a maximum width for programs' --help output
> > > (and psql's \?)? I think 79 characters was once a recommendation
> > > (or perhaps 72), but we have a couple of violations either way,
> > > which I'd like to fix, but what to?
> >
> > I think 79 is still a reasonable maximum. AFAIK 80 columns is still a
> > pretty standard terminal window width, but if you try to print in the
> > last column you may get unexpected extra blank lines.
>
> O.k. this might be offtopic if it is feel free to smack me... but I
> have noticed that psql really breaks on terminals that are wide.. \df
> works fine, but \df+ is completely broke.
>
> Can't we just ask the terminal?

Peter is talking about --help text that is hard-coded into the binary,
meaning you don't run it through some filter before output.

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Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> http://momjian.us
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