[sf-lug] dpkg -l & width ...

[Daniel Gimpelevich]

On Wed, 2017-08-02 at 20:53 -0700, Michael Paoli wrote:
> > From: "Rick Moen" <rick at linuxmafia.com>
> > Subject: Re: [sf-lug] dpkg -l & width ...
> > Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2017 20:36:11 -0700
> 
> > Quoting Michael Paoli (Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu):
> >
> >> Yes, that shows it as a shell named parameter ("variable").
> >> But is it in (exported to) the environment?
> >>
> >> $ env | grep '^COLUMNS='
> >> gives ... what?
> >
> > null.  FWIW.
> >
> > {shrug}
> 
> Yes, ... so set - as shell named parameter ("variable"), but
> not exported into the environment.
> 
> So, hence, dpkg would know nothing of it ... unless one did
> something like:
> $ COLUMNS="$COLUMNS" dpkg -l | cat
> $ (export COLUMNS; dpkg -l | cat)
> etc.
> (if we don't make stdout a non-tty device, dpkg -l will generally
> figure out width from ioctl call(s) on the file descriptor 1 (stdout)
> isatty(3) device)

Did you not see my post at 9:31am?