shell buffer / tcsh command line length limit in RH 8?

I reported this bug to Red Hat on the assumption that this was a bug in tcsh or readline, but I suppose it's equally likely that it's a bug in how xemacs is dealing with ptys (since the bug does not occur when running tcsh in gnome-terminal.) I also assume they will completely ignore my report without even looking at it, since emacs is involved. So I'll report it to you guys as well: http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=82610 Since upgrading from RH 7.2 to RH 8.0, I can no longer compose long command lines in tcsh when running in an XEmacs *shell* buffer. I don't know whether this is a bug in tcsh, or in readline, or what, but it does not happen with bash. It's not merely truncating the command line -- it's also apparently leaving the un-read characters on the input buffer, and then interpreting them as commands afterward! This is potentially disasterous, and could easily lead to loss of files, if there were redirections or something on the command line. This still happens after setting $LANG to C, so it's apparently not some Unicode locale BS, as so many recent problems are. Watch what happens (line wrapping and blank lines inserted for readability): setenv LANG C xemacs -q M-x shell <jwz＠gronk:/home/jwz/> echo a23456789 b23456789 c23456789 d2345678 9 e23456789 f23456789 g23456789 h23456789 i23456789 j23456789 k234 56789 l23456789 m23456789 n23456789 o23456789 p23456789 q23456789 r23456789 s23456789 t23456789 u23456789 v23456789 w23456789 x23456 789 y23456789 [ ... apparent ls of current directory, maybe from a ^D ? ... ] <jwz＠gronk:/home/jwz/> y23456789: Command not found. Exit 1 <jwz＠gronk:/home/jwz/> [ ... then I hit RET again, and ... ] a23456789 b23456789 c23456789 d23456789 e23456789 f23456789 g23456 789 h23456789 i23456789 j23456789 k23456789 l23456789 m23456789 n2 3456789 o23456789 p23456789 q23456789 r23456789 s23456789 t2345678 9 u23456789 v23456789 w23456789 x23456789 <jwz＠gronk:/home/jwz/> sh sh-2.05b$ echo a23456789 b23456789 c23456789 d23456789 e23456789 f 23456789 g23456789 h23456789 i23456789 j23456789 k23456789 l234567 89 m23456789 n23456789 o23456789 p23456789 q23456789 r23456789 s23 456789 t23456789 u23456789 v23456789 w23456789 x23456789 y23456789 a23456789 b23456789 c23456789 d23456789 e23456789 f23456789 g23456 789 h23456789 i23456789 j23456789 k23456789 l23456789 m23456789 n2 3456789 o23456789 p23456789 q23456789 r23456789 s23456789 t2345678 9 u23456789 v23456789 w23456789 x23456789 y23456789 sh-2.05b$ Versions: Red Hat Linux release 8.0 (Psyche) Linux 2.4.18-14 #1 Wed Sep 4 12:13:11 EDT 2002 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux tcsh-6.12-2 bash-2.05b-5 readline-devel-4.3-3 readline-4.3-3 xemacs-21.4.8-16 uname -a: Linux astest 2.4.9-e.8smp #1 SMP Fri Jul 19 15:38:30 EDT 2002 i686 unknown unknown GNU/Linux ./configure 'i386-redhat-linux-gnu' '--prefix=/usr' '--exec-prefix=/usr' '--bindir=/usr/bin' '--datadir=/usr/share' '--libdir=/usr/lib' '--mandir=/usr/share/man/man1' '--infodir=/usr/share/info' '--with-gpm=no' '--with-sound=native' '--with-pop' '--mail-locking=lockf' '--with-clash-detection' '--debug=no' '--error-checking=none' '--with-mule=yes' '--with-database=berkdb' '--with-ldap=yes' '--with-hesiod=no' '--with-canna=yes' '--with-wnn=yes' '--with-widgets=motif' '--with-menubars=lucid' '--with-scrollbars=lucid' '--with-dialogs=motif' '--with-xim=xlib' '--with-msw=no' '--with-xfs=yes' '--pdump' -- Jamie Zawinski jwz(a)jwz.org http://www.jwz.org/ jwz(a)dnalounge.com http://www.dnalounge.com/