ee(1): why Backspace doesn't work as expected if $TERM=xterm?

[Constantine A. Murenin]

On 07 Dec 2005 09:27:48 -0500, Lowell Gilbert
<freebsd-questions-local at be-well.ilk.org> wrote:
> "Constantine A. Murenin" <mureninc at gmail.com> writes:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > When I ssh my FreeBSD 4.8 machine and try to use ee(1), I always
> > notice that Backspace erases the following character, not the previous
> > one. On the contrary, I've noticed that it does not do that when I
> > login via console.
> >
> > So I decided to play with the value of $TERM.
> >
> > By default, when I ssh FreeBSD via PuTTY or Apple Terminal, I have the
> > TERM variable set to "xterm" or "xterm-color". When I tried to
> > manually change $TERM on FreeBSD and run ee, using "setenv TERM vt102
> > && ee test.txt", then Backspace key in ee(1) did behave as expected.
> >
> > Please, notice that Backspace does behave as expected in tcsh, it's
> > only ee(1) that shows this problem.
> >
> > How do I fix it without changing $TERM?
>
> Offhand, it sounds as though your terminal programs aren't really
> emulating xterms perfectly.  Look for adjustments on how they map the
> backspace key...

They map it perfectly fine as 127, it's only FreeBSD's ee(1) that has
this problem, tcsh and others work fine.

Notice that ee(1) on OpenBSD from ports works fine from the very same
terminals (PuTTY etc). Problem exists only with FreeBSD's ee(1).

Cheers,
Constantine.