[syslinux] 5.01 DISPLAY file last line

Ady
Thu, 31 Jan 2013 12:57:19 -0000

There is a problem with the last line of DISPLAY files in Syslinux
5.01.

  *** syslinux.cfg start ***

DEFAULT cat1
PROMPT 1
F1 help.txt
LABEL cat1
COM32 cat.c32
APPEND help.txt

  *** syslinux.cfg end ***

  *** help.txt start ***
LINE 1 OF help.txt
LINE 2 OF help.txt
LINE 3 OF help.txt
  *** help.txt end ***

Note that the last line in "help.txt" is "LINE 3 OF
help.txt" and
that there is no CR nor LF characters in that last line.

When pressing F1, the last line of "help.txt" is "not
displayed". Or,
more accurately, it is "overwritten" when the "boot:" prompt
is
displayed.

In Syslinux 5.01, the "boot:" prompt appears at the first column of
the row (line) of the screen.

When using "cat1" (press "enter" in the above syslinux.cfg
file) the
"boot:" prompt will be displayed in the same last line of
"help.txt",
but _after_ the last character of the file.

Something similar can be seen when using menu.c32. If you are seeing
a menu on the screen (with default colors) and you press [ESC] so to
get the "boot:" prompt, then:

A_ in Syslinux 4.06 (menu.c32), the background color is still the
same, except behind the "boot:" prompt words (only).
B_ in Syslinux 5.01 (menu.c32), the background color is still the
same, except behind the complete screen row where the "boot:" prompt
is displayed.

The aesthetic difference between "A" and "B" is not a
problem IMHO. I
am just mentioning it because it may give some clue about the reason
for the problem described above regarding the last line of DISPLAY
files and the "boot:" prompt overwriting it.

BTW, DISPLAY files were having problems with the _first_ line before
(during some 5.xx pre-releases) and cat.c32 was having this problem
with the _last_ line (also during some 5.xx pre-releases). Those two
issues were resolved already. Although it may (or may not) be related
to those, this new report is about the resulting behavior for the
_last_ line of DISPLAY files.

TIA,
Ady.

PS: I was searching the old reports in the ML archives so to add
their links here (in case they are of some use), but it is getting
more difficult to find archived emails when the archives can't be
indexed by any web search engine
anymore.