Latest xterm update does paste tabs as spaces

nickk · n00b Joined: 04 Jun 2009 Posts: 36

After latest update of xterm (337) it started to convert tabs to spaces on paste. It copies tabs to clipboard normally, but it's converted to spaces when pasted back. I extracted from backup earlier version on xterm (327) and it works ok with the same configs (only binary replaced). Is there any way to fix tab paste issue with 337 xterm?

Fitzcarraldo · Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 5:53 pm Post subject:

Apparently it's a known bug: https://invisible-island.net/xterm/xterm.faq.html#known_bugs

nickk · n00b Joined: 04 Jun 2009 Posts: 36

Strange. That faq seems to be quite old, but xterm #327 from 2016/10/07 works fine with tabs, while the #337 from 2018/09/21 is broken again... BTW, #337 selects tab correctly - i can paste selected text containing tabs from xterm elsewhere with tabs preserved, but cant paste tabs back to xterm.

Hu · Moderator Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 21633

Just to be sure we are all discussing the same thing, which of the following did you do?

Run a program that prints a tab to screen, such as printf '\t-\n', then mouse-select the resulting output and:
- paste it into another xterm
- paste it into a graphical text editor, such as GVim or XEmacs
Copy to the clipboard a tab, from a graphical text editor that definitely started with a tab and: (same subpoints as above)

In whichever case you did, the result of the paste was spaces when you copied from new xterm and a tab when you copied from old xterm, correct? Or are you reporting that pasting into xterm changed, despite that the sender is reliably copying real tabs?

How did you verify the change? Did you paste into a program that unambiguously identifies its input, such as xxd for the CLI?