returns the default value (80) when a real value is not available (0 is not an acceptable value for COLUMNS, the width of the screen). see pull request on upstream : http://github.com/antirez/linenoise/pull/31 Signed-off-by: Francois Perrad Index: b/linenoise.c =================================================================== --- a/linenoise.c +++ b/linenoise.c @@ -182,7 +182,7 @@ static int getColumns(void) { struct winsize ws; - if (ioctl(1, TIOCGWINSZ, &ws) == -1) return 80; + if (ioctl(1, TIOCGWINSZ, &ws) == -1 || ws.ws_col == 0) return 80; return ws.ws_col; }