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[PATCH v2 2/4] pager: add a helper function to clear the last line in the terminal

From
SZEDER Gábor <szeder.dev@gmail.com>
Date
Jun 11, 2019, 13:03 UTC
Message-ID
<20190611130320.18499-3-szeder.dev@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To
<20190611130320.18499-1-szeder.dev@gmail.com>

There are a couple of places where we want to clear the last line on the terminal, e.g. when a progress bar line is overwritten by a shorter line, then the end of that progress line would remain visible, unless we cover it up.

In 'progress.c' we did this by always appending a fixed number of space characters to the next line (even if it was not shorter than the previous), but as it turned out that fixed number was not quite large enough, see the fix in 9f1fd84e15 (progress: clear previous progress update dynamically, 2019-04-12). From then on we've been keeping track of the length of the last displayed progress line and appending the appropriate number of space characters to the next line, if necessary, but, alas, this approach turned out to be error prone, see the fix in 1aed1a5f25 (progress: avoid empty line when breaking the progress line, 2019-05-19). The next patch in this series is about to fix a case where we don't clear the last line, and on occasion do end up with such garbage at the end of the line. It would be great if we could do that without the need to deal with that without meticulously computing the necessary number of space characters.

So add a helper function to clear the last line on the terminal using an ANSI escape sequence, which has the advantage to clear the whole line no matter how wide it is, even after the terminal width changed. Such an escape sequence is not available on dumb terminals, though, so in that case fall back to simply print a whole terminal width (as reported by term_columns()) worth of space characters.

In 'editor.c' launch_specified_editor() already used this ANSI escape sequence, so replace it with a call to this function.

Signed-off-by: SZEDER Gábor <szeder.dev@gmail.com>
---
 cache.h  |  1 +
 editor.c |  6 +++---
 pager.c  | 20 ++++++++++++++++++++
 3 files changed, 24 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
diff --git a/cache.h b/cache.h
index b4bb2e2c11..5b2cd32bad 100644
--- a/cache.h
+++ b/cache.h
@@ -1759,6 +1759,7 @@ void setup_pager(void);
 int pager_in_use(void);
 extern int pager_use_color;
 int term_columns(void);
+void term_clear_line(void);
 int decimal_width(uintmax_t);
 int check_pager_config(const char *cmd);
 void prepare_pager_args(struct child_process *, const char *pager);
diff --git a/editor.c b/editor.c
index 71547674ab..f079abbf11 100644
--- a/editor.c
+++ b/editor.c
@@ -96,10 +96,10 @@ static int launch_specified_editor(const char *editor, const char *path,
 
 		if (print_waiting_for_editor && !is_terminal_dumb())
 			/*
-			 * Go back to the beginning and erase the entire line to
-			 * avoid wasting the vertical space.
+			 * Erase the entire line to avoid wasting the
+			 * vertical space.
 			 */
-			fputs("\r\033[K", stderr);
+			term_clear_line();
 	}
 
 	if (!buffer)
diff --git a/pager.c b/pager.c
index 4168460ae9..41446d4f05 100644
--- a/pager.c
+++ b/pager.c
@@ -177,6 +177,26 @@ int term_columns(void)
 	return term_columns_at_startup;
 }
 
+/*
+ * Clear the entire line, leave cursor in first column.
+ */
+void term_clear_line(void)
+{
+	if (is_terminal_dumb())
+		/*
+		 * Fall back to print a terminal width worth of space
+		 * characters (hoping that the terminal is still as wide
+		 * as it was upon the first call to term_columns()).
+		 */
+		fprintf(stderr, "\r%*s\r", term_columns(), "");
+	else
+		/*
+		 * On non-dumb terminals use an escape sequence to clear
+		 * the whole line, no matter how wide the terminal.
+		 */
+		fputs("\r\033[K", stderr);
+}
+
 /*
  * How many columns do we need to show this number in decimal?
  */
-- 
2.22.0.566.g58873a45ff
Previous: SZEDER GáborNext: SZEDER Gábor
Message 7 of 41 in “rebase: fix garbled progress display with '-x'”
  1. rebase: fix garbled progress display with '-x'SZEDER Gábor, Apr 30, 2019
  2. Johannes SchindelinApr 30, 2019
  3. SZEDER GáborMay 1, 2019
  4. Johannes SchindelinMay 3, 2019
  5. SZEDER GáborJun 11, 2019
  6. 0/4 rebase/progress: add and use term_clear_line()SZEDER Gábor, Jun 11, 2019
  7. 2/4 pager: add a helper function to clear the last line in the terminalSZEDER Gábor, Jun 11, 2019
  8. 1/4 t3404-rebase-interactive: use the 'q_to_cr' helperSZEDER Gábor, Jun 11, 2019
  9. 3/4 rebase: fix garbled progress display with '-x'SZEDER Gábor, Jun 11, 2019
  10. Junio C HamanoJun 11, 2019
  11. SZEDER GáborJun 11, 2019
  12. Johannes SchindelinJun 12, 2019
  13. SZEDER GáborJun 12, 2019
  14. Johannes SchindelinJun 13, 2019
  15. Johannes SchindelinJun 14, 2019
  16. SZEDER GáborJun 17, 2019
  17. SZEDER GáborJun 17, 2019
  18. SZEDER GáborJun 17, 2019
  19. SZEDER GáborJun 24, 2019
  20. Phillip WoodJun 25, 2019
  21. SZEDER GáborJun 25, 2019
  22. Phillip WoodJun 25, 2019
  23. Phillip WoodJun 25, 2019
  24. Johannes SchindelinJun 25, 2019
  25. Phillip WoodJun 25, 2019
  26. Junio C HamanoJun 11, 2019
  27. SZEDER GáborJun 11, 2019
  28. Junio C HamanoJun 12, 2019
  29. 4/4 progress: use term_clear_line()SZEDER Gábor, Jun 11, 2019
  30. Johannes SchindelinJun 12, 2019
  31. 0/5 rebase/progress: add and use term_clear_line()SZEDER Gábor, Jun 24, 2019
  32. 2/5 t3404: make the 'rebase.missingCommitsCheck=ignore' test more focusedSZEDER Gábor, Jun 24, 2019
  33. Johannes SchindelinJun 25, 2019
  34. 1/5 t3404: modernize here doc styleSZEDER Gábor, Jun 24, 2019
  35. Johannes SchindelinJun 25, 2019
  36. 3/5 pager: add a helper function to clear the last line in the terminalSZEDER Gábor, Jun 24, 2019
  37. 4/5 rebase: fix garbled progress display with '-x'SZEDER Gábor, Jun 24, 2019
  38. 4/5 rebase: fix garbled progress display with '-x'SZEDER Gábor, Jun 27, 2019
  39. 5/5 progress: use term_clear_line()SZEDER Gábor, Jun 24, 2019
  40. Johannes SchindelinJun 25, 2019
  41. Junio C HamanoJun 25, 2019

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