Commits on Mar 25, 2020

1. installer: Fix terminal colors. …

   The install-multi-user script uses blue, green, and red colors, as
   well as bold and underline, to add helpful formatting that helps
   structure its rather voluminous output.
   
   Unfortunately, the terminal escape sequences it uses are not quite
   well-formed.  The relevant information is all there, just obscured
   by some extra noise, a leading parameter `38`.  Empirically, the
   result is:
   
    * On macOS, in both Terminal.app and iTerm2, the spurious `38` is
      ignored, the rest of the escape sequence is applied, and the colors
      show up as intended.
   
    * On Linux, in at least gnome-terminal and xterm, the spurious `38`
      and the next parameter after it are ignored, and what's left is
      applied.  So in the sequence `38;4;32`, the 4 (underline) is
      ignored but the 32 (green) takes effect; in a more typical sequence
      like `38;34`, the 34 (blue) is ignored and nothing happens.
   
   These codes are all unchanged since this script's origins as a
   Darwin-only script -- so the fact that they work fine in common macOS
   terminals goes some way to explain how the bug arose.
   
   Happily, we can make the colors work as intended by just deleting the
   extra `38;`.  Tested in all four terminals mentioned above; the new
   codes work correctly on all of them, and on the two macOS terminals
   they work exactly the same as before.
   
   ---
   
   In a bit more technical detail -- perhaps more than anyone, me
   included, ever wanted to know, but now that I've gone and learned it
   I'll write it down anyway :) -- here's what's happening in these codes:
   
   An ECMA-48 "control sequence" begins with `\033[` aka "CSI", contains
   any number of parameters as semicolon-separated decimal numbers (plus
   sometimes other wrinkles), and ends with a byte from 0x40..0x7e.  In
   our case, with `m` aka "SGR", "Select Graphic Rendition".
   
   An SGR control sequence `\033[...m` sets colors, fonts, text styles,
   etc.  In particular a parameter `31` means red, `32` green, `34` blue,
   `4` underline, and `0` means reset to normal.  Those are all we use.
   
   There is also a `38`.  This is used for setting colors too... but it
   needs arguments.  `38;5;nn` is color nn from a 256-color palette, and
   `38;2;rr;gg;bb` has the given RGB values.
   
   There is no meaning defined for `38;1` or `38;34` etc.  On seeing a
   parameter `38` followed by an unrecognized argument for it, apparently
   some implementations (as seen on macOS) discard only the `38` and
   others (as seen on Linux) discard the argument too before resuming.

   

   gnprice committed Mar 25, 2020
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2. Merge pull request #3445 from gnprice/pr-installer-colors …

   installer: Fix terminal colors.

   

   edolstra committed Mar 25, 2020
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   eb1911e View commit details

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