what is "ANSI line graphics hack"

[David d'Angers]

hi fellow linuxers

i read this in the manpage of the command "tree" and one of the
commandline option is

-A Turn on ANSI line graphics hack when printing the indentation
lines.

i'm not a native english speaker so i can not comprehend exactly what
it means by ANSI line graphics hack

thanks

[Laurenz Albe]

Post by David d'Angers
i read this in the manpage of the command "tree" and one of the
commandline option is
-A Turn on ANSI line graphics hack when printing the indentation
lines.
i'm not a native english speaker so i can not comprehend exactly what
it means by ANSI line graphics hack

To format output nicely, the program sends control characters to
the terminal. These are sometimes called "ANSI codes".
A "hack" is code that is considered sloppy or does not respect a standard
or works around a problem in a way that is not pretty.

You'd have to look at the source code in this case to know what -A
will do in your version of "tree".

Yours,
Laurenz Albe

[David d'Angers]

thanks man
hack is a subtle word

[s***@freenet.co.uk]

Post by Laurenz Albe

Post by David d'Angers
i read this in the manpage of the command "tree" and one of the
commandline option is
-A Turn on ANSI line graphics hack when printing the indentation
lines.
i'm not a native english speaker so i can not comprehend exactly what
it means by ANSI line graphics hack

To format output nicely, the program sends control characters to
the terminal. These are sometimes called "ANSI codes".
A "hack" is code that is considered sloppy or does not respect a standard
or works around a problem in a way that is not pretty.

Or won't work in some circumstances.
For example, I use the latin1 extensions, rather than the line graphics in
the upper 128 characters in the set. So turning on ANSI would be ugly in
that case.