Ksh cursor keys (Was: who uses which shells)

[Johan Vromans]

>From article <284 at marob.MASA.COM>, by daveh at marob.MASA.COM (Dave Hammond):
> In article <1887 at mhres.mh.nl> jv at mhres.mh.nl (Johan Vromans) writes:
>>But WHY does ksh not allow cursor (=arrow) keys to be used?
> 
> Ksh does not make use of any terminal-independent characteristics, such as
> cursor-keys. External editors are emulated using only newlines, returns
> and spaces to modify the edit line. 

This is oversimplification. About 50 vi and emacs editing commands are 
emulated.

>                                     Making use of cursor-keys also requires
> parsing multiple character sequences which would add some overhead.

Sequences like ESC-d (delete-word), ESC-f (forward-word) etc. are
handled, as are ESC-* (filename generation) and ESC-= (file list).
Adding some overhead to break the misnotion that Unix is user-unfriendly
pays.
-- 
Johan Vromans                              | jv at mh.nl via European backbone
Multihouse N.V., Gouda, the Netherlands    | uucp: ..{uunet!}mcvax!mh.nl!jv
"It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness"