Arch Linux

newt9

Member

Registered: 2021-02-14

Posts: 14

[SOLVED] Bold formatting in less shown as $(printf '%b' '') on dwm

In the last 2 weeks, the formatting in my terminal emulator is off.

It seems to only be for bolded words. Even though they're actually bolded, terminal seems to think they're not.

For now, I've just noticed the problem in less (eg. when checking man, but also on every other package that relies on it).

Sample output:

Conventional section names include $(printf '%b' '')NAME$(printf '%b' ''), $(printf '%b' '')SYNOPSIS$(printf '%b' ''), $(printf '%b' '')CONFIGURATION$(printf '%b' ''), $(printf '%b' '')DESCRIPTION$(printf '%b' ''), $(printf '%b' '')OPTIONS$(printf '%b' ''), $(printf '%b' '')EXIT$(printf '%b' '') $(printf '%b' '')STATUS$(printf '%b' ''), $(printf '%b' '')RETURN$(printf '%b' '')
$(printf '%b' '')VALUE$(printf '%b' ''), $(printf '%b' '')ER‐$(printf '%b' '')

Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/ASjL15K.png

Another issue that occurred at the same time, is the first line of the output is left out (eg. the first line of man man is "manual. The default action is to..."), and (sometimes) when I scroll, the bar at the bottom with the line numbers starts repeating itself (even when scrolling upwards). If I scroll up, it'll skip a good 20 lines and print this at the start of every line: (printf '%b' '')>$(printf '%b' '').

Brief overview of things I've tried:
- Analyzing the diffs of my build of st to a similar working build on another PC, no issues found.
- Trying alacritty instead of st. (All) problem(s) persists.
- (Re)Updating all relevant packages (st, dwm, man, less).
- Reloading xresources/xrdb.
- Commenting out entire xresources file. Colors change, but problem persists.
- Checking for the same in tty. No problems there.
- Changing shell (zsh to bash). Same problem.
- Changing fonts, reloading fontconfig. Fonts change, but problem persists.
- Searching a ton for this problem in all the ways I could phrase it, and coming up with nothing.

I'm running st/dwm/arch. Know it's not st (because of alacritty). So, I'm guessing it's either dwm, or some other setting in one of my configs... wish I knew what I did

This is my first post here. Been using Arch for over a year, and I've managed to trouble shoot everything myself with the help of your awesome wiki and forums. But this small thing stumped me. Hoping one of you can at least point me in the direction of what I could try looking in the logs for or debugging.

moderator edit -- replaced oversized image with link.
Pasting pictures and code

Last edited by newt9 (2023-03-16 10:41:12)

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 77,595

Re: [SOLVED] Bold formatting in less shown as $(printf '%b' '') on dwm

Please replace the oversized image w/ a link or thumbnail (200x200px)

The offender is probably around the groff package, because "printf '%b' …" is supposed to print an escape sequence (likely for bold), but also post the output of "printenv".

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newt9

Member

Registered: 2021-02-14

Posts: 14

Re: [SOLVED] Bold formatting in less shown as $(printf '%b' '') on dwm

The offender is probably around the groff package, because "printf '%b' …" is supposed to print an escape sequence (likely for bold), but also post the output of "printenv".

printenv gave me a good start, thanks! Think it might have something to do with how I've set up st and dwm's color scheme, and how LESS_TERMCAP sets them. Will play around with it this evening and see if I can solve it myself. If I do, I'll give my solution and mark the thread as solved.