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open-watcom / open-watcom-v2

Open Watcom V2.0 - Source code repository, Wiki, Latest Binary build, Archived builds including all installers for download.
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wlink -? Can't see the first few pages of options #998

Open fraser125 opened 1 year ago

fraser125 commented 1 year ago

I'm using wlink in DOS 6.22 and when executing the command wlink -? the text scrolls off the screen so I can't read most of it. The issue is that DOS 6.22 doesn't provide any "scroll back". I also tried wlink -? | more and wlink -? > wlink.txt which also don't provide the desired results.

I believe this is due to the interactive console interface that wlink provides, so I'm not sure what can be done. Maybe build in a page break prompt for the Banner Text? Thanks for an otherwise great set of tools!

jmalak commented 1 year ago

Thanks for your bug report. We will fix it.

pchapin commented 1 year ago

@jmalak Is your plan to send the help text to stdout instead of stderr? I recall discussions about this issue before and there were some (including myself) that objected to having the output of such commands pause after each screen of text. It's annoying on systems with large displays, and potentially complicates life for scripts (because of the need for interactive input). The piping option wlink -? | more would work if the output were going to stdout, and that seems like the best solution overall... well, to me anyway!

gfernval commented 1 year ago

Does "wlink -? 2> wlink.txt" work?

jmalak commented 1 year ago

I think we already have general discussion about standardization of OW tools output (originally for Linux output). wlink output should follow same rules as for C/C++ compilers that no interactive page break, output for help to stdout etc.

Now wlink output help text to stderr output and it is source of problem for DOS because stderr cannot be redirected in DOS it is always going to console.

jmalak commented 1 year ago

I did temporary fix for this issue. Please check.

It requires review wlink output system and also remove of interactive mode (archaic functionality).