[Help-bash] Reverse Scrolling in BASH

[Andrew Dixon]

Hi all,

I've been thinking lately that it would be really cool if bash scrolled up instead of down. When I'm working on my laptop, I want to be looking at the top of the screen instead of the bottom. So, I'm trying to hack this feature into bash and I was wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction.

I think(tm) the right place to do this is in lib/readline/display.c. Specifically the rl_redisplay() function (see below). If I understand this correctly, we've created rl_outstream which is the line that we want to print and fflush will actually print it to the terminal. So, I want to modify rl_outstream so that the prompt is on top instead of on the bottom. Does that sound right? Any hints tips or tricks would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Andrew

492 /* Basic redisplay algorithm. */

493 void

494 rl_redisplay () 

495 {

<snip>

1229        /* ADD - figure out what fflush does. I think this is the final step before 

1230          *       we output to the screen

1231          */

1232   fflush (rl_outstream);

1233 

<snip>

1250 

1251         /* ADD - Seems like this is important. Can we set the prompt to the upper left 

1252          *       corner before this line?

1253          */

1254   RL_UNSETSTATE (RL_STATE_REDISPLAYING);

1255   _rl_release_sigint ();

1256 }