Re: vanishing spaces

[Ray Andrews <rayandrews@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 2024-03-30 09:07, Marc Chantreux wrote:

> aptitude search '~i~nnvidia' for short. check it out:
    
    Works fine, thanks.
> good:
>
> 	output="$( eval $* )"
> 	echo "$output"
>     
    I tried to minimalize the issue:
    
    % var="$(aptitude search '~i~n(nvidia)')"
    % print "$var"
    
    ...  but I still loose the spaces.  No variation on quoting helps. 
    Tried with:
    emulate -L zsh
    ... thinking it might be some option or other, but no change.
    
> Aside: I don't understand why you eval it. it's ok to write
>     
    In my function I have nested expansions, so the eval seemed
    necessary.  
    
    Bart:
    
> That's not an array variable, it's a string.  You need
  output=( $( ... ) )
for array assignment.

... of course, sorry, I pasted an experimental line by accident.

> What does

print -r -- "$( eval $* )"

show?

... no improvement.  

% print -r -- "$(aptitude search '~i~n(nvidia)')"

... doesn't fix it either.

Seems Marc is using Debian (or derivative) so if he gets it showing properly then I must have some local anomaly. 

Hey ... just occurs to me now ... the aptitude columns are 'smart' -- the wider your terminal the wider the gap between columns!  So, as you intuit Bart, maybe the columnizing can't work without a terminal. -- it's a feature specific to a known width of output.

... yeah, that's it.  'aptitude --disable-columns' ... same output.  So this never was a zsh issue.  I wish we had some way of killing threads, I'd just nuke this thread as a red herring.