On Tue, May 18, 2004 at 01:18:50PM +0100, Thomas Adam wrote: > --- Adam Funk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Excellent. I had tried these: > > > > (COLUMNS=200 ; dpkg -l) |head > > (COLUMNS=200 && dpkg -l) |head > > > > but got the narrow output. Why do these two fail? > > Because COLUMNS=200 is being set in a subshell. Thus, the resultant output > when it is piped through to head is lost, since bash does not work in this > way.
No; it doesn't matter whether head can see COLUMNS or not, and the output is not "lost". You can tell this because both of these work fine: (export COLUMNS=200; dpkg -l) | head (COLUMNS=200 dpkg -l) | head ... as well as the more natural: COLUMNS=200 dpkg -l | head Cheers, -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]