---
title: FAQ
permalink: /faq.html
redirect_from:
  - /docs/faq.html
  - /docs/faq.shtml
created_at: 1999-04-06
last_modified_at: 2021-02-26 22:03:41 +0100
---

# FAQ

These are the frequently asked questions about the *boxes* program and their answers.

These questions are *actually* "frequently asked". For general information on the *boxes* program, installation
instructions, and information on box design creation please refer to the
[*boxes* documentation]({{ site.baseurl }}/).


{% comment %} ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- {% endcomment %}
{% include heading.html
   level=3 slug="q1"
   text="Q. 1. What is a text filter program?" %}

There is a [separate page]({{ site.baseurl }}/filters.html) explaining this. *Boxes* is mostly used as such a
filter program. 


{% comment %} ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- {% endcomment %}
{% include heading.html
   level=3 slug="q2"
   text="Q. 2. Error message \"input in flex scanner failed\"" %}

Upgrade to version 1.0.1 or later. Versions prior to 1.0.1 gave this error message when the config file they were
trying to read was in fact a directory. The global config file name is */usr/share/boxes* on most systems. This is the
name of the file, not the name of a directory into which a config file would be placed.


{% comment %} ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- {% endcomment %}
{% include heading.html
   level=3 slug="q3"
   text="Q. 3. Boxes destroys my tabs!" %}

By default, all tab characters are replaced by spaces. However, you can change this behavior using the `-t` option
(since version 1.1). The `-t` option only affects leading tabs. Tabs which end up inside the box are *always* converted
into spaces.  
Note that you can also set the tab stop distance (== how many spaces per tab) using the `-t` option.


{% comment %} ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- {% endcomment %}
{% include heading.html
   level=3 slug="q4"
   text="Q. 4. \"Can't read file C:\TEMP\VIO44.TMP\" when calling boxes from vim" %}

On Windows, this error message may appear instead of a box when *boxes* is called from vim. This is not a problem of
*boxes*. In fact, it's a misleading message from the vim editor which is supposed to tell you that *boxes* is not in
your PATH. Solution: Copy *boxes.exe* and *boxes.cfg* to a directory which is in your PATH. (thanks *Jeff Lanzarotta*,
05-Jul-00)


{% comment %} ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- {% endcomment %}
{% include heading.html
   level=3 slug="q5"
   text="Q. 5. Compilation" %}

Detailed information on how to build *boxes* from source is collected on the
[build page]({{ site.baseurl }}/build.html).

In addition to that, the following issues have occurred:

- Warnings from flex or bison:\\
  If you get warnings from flex or bison, do a `make clean ; make` from the top level directory. The following warning
  is harmless:

      lexer.l:1309: warning: `yy_flex_realloc' defined but not used

  It's a known bug in flex, and has no impact on *boxes*. You can safely ignore this warning. Recent versions of flex
  no longer produce this warning, so today, you probably won't see it anymore.

- `Bad address` on *boxes* execution after compiling on a 64bit system:
  This may happen when the system you are compiling on is 64bit. Boxes is only a 32bit program, so the compiler may
  have to be forced to 32bit by adding the `-m32` option. (Thanks to
  <span class="atmention">[@stefanow](https://github.com/stefanow)</span> for
  [supplying](https://github.com/{{ site.github }}/issues/7){:target="_blank"} this information!)
  In order to do this, use the following command line (works with current sources):

      make CFLAGS_ADDTL=-m32 LDFLAGS_ADDTL=-m32

- Compilation on SLES:\\
  On SLES, you might need to add `-std=c99` as observed by
  <span class="atmention">[@mathomp4](https://github.com/mathomp4)</span> in
  [#74](https://github.com/ascii-boxes/boxes/issues/74#issuecomment-784371446).


{% comment %} ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- {% endcomment %}
{% include heading.html
   level=3 slug="q6"
   text="Q. 6. Character Encoding" %}

Since v2.0.0, *boxes* supports different character encodings for input/output text. The config file, however, is
still ASCII (we are working on that). *boxes* normally picks up your system encoding, which on most systems, is simply
UTF-8. You can override this behavior with `-n`. *boxes* shows what it thinks is the system encoding when you call
`boxes -h` - the displayed default value for `-n` is the system encoding.