xterm tab key (temporarily) locks keyboard

[Brian Inglis]

On 2020-10-18 12:07, Frank Eske via Cygwin wrote:
> If the tab key is entered as the first character running the bash shell on
> an xterm terminal, the keyboard temporarily locks. Control-C writes ^C but
> doesn't unlock it. This doesn't happen on Fedora. It also doesn't lock if a
> space is typed first.
> 
> This occurs whether or not the xterm console is in an X environment.
> 
> For some reason I seem to accidentally do this a lot more often than I'd
> like, so it's a real nuisance. I checked this mailing list for the last
> four months and couldn't find " tab" or a useful "tab ", I find it
> difficult to believe that I'm the first to see this, so maybe there's
> something I changed that's making this happen. Any advice on what that
> might be?

Bash command completion is searching for commands to display - you will
eventually get asked if you want to "Display all 4587 possibilities? (y or n)"
(or similar number) after it has loaded all executable names from all
directories in your PATH!

Also beware of typing tab after /tmp/, /var/log/, /var/cache/.../, or running ls
on those without -U (unordered) if you are as tidy as I am.

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

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