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Re: command "cat /etc/localtime" breaks output on tty-terminal

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On Sun, Jun 23, 2019, 5:31 AM bitfreak25 <bitfreak25@gmx.de> wrote:

> OS: Arch Linux 5.1.12-arch1-1-ARCH (tty1)
> Bash-Version: 5.0.7(1)-release
> localization: de_DE.UTF-8 UTF-8
> keymap: de-latin1-nodeadkeys
>
> Description:
> The command "cat /etc/localtime" was called in a tty-terminal. After that
> some characters will be printed incorrectly (mostly "cyrillic" chars
> instead of the correct ones). The typed chars seems to be handled correctly
> (e.g. calling "exit") but the output is broken at this point. This
> behaviour is reproducible on my other PC with Debian Stable (Bash-Version
> in Debian: 4.4-5), so it seems to be a old bug. Changing to another tty or
> rebooting the OS will fix this behaviour until the command is called again.
>
> Kind regards,
> bitfreak
>
>


/etc/localtime is symlinked to a file that contains time zone data. If you
enter the command

file -L /etc/localtime

you'll see that that's the case. It contains data that's not meant to be
displayed including control characters which cause the effect you observed.
If you cat any so-called binary file such as this you are likely to see the
same kind of thing happen. Entering the

reset

command in the affected terminal will correct the problem after it occurs.

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Re: command "cat /etc/localtime" breaks output on tty-terminal Dennis Williamson <dennistwilliamson@gmail.com> - 2019-06-23 06:04 -0500

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