Hi, there is a regression introduced by this commit: e43048325611953396186b569447a3754422ddc3 Author: Michael Albinus <michael.albinus@gmx.de> Date: Fri Dec 6 16:34:06 2013 +0100 Bug#16045 * progmodes/compile.el (compilation-start): * progmodes/grep.el (rgrep): Revert change of 2012-12-20 (r111276). * net/tramp-sh.el (tramp-sh-handle-start-file-process): Handle long command lines, lasting from "sh -c ...". (Bug#16045) The following syntax used to execute tramp shell command: exec <<EOF /bin/bash commands EOF prevents users to send inputs to bash using stdin. For example, the following does not works anymore: exec <<EOF /bin/bash read line; echo $line; EOF I don't understand what was this problem of long command lines (Bug#16045): I've tried to execute shell comands with huge command lines and all were successfull. To keep the approach of splitting the lines, I would suggest something like that: exec /bin/bash -c " commands on multiple lines " But this needs to backslash all shell specific characters, and I don't know if there is really benefit compared to the original solution (before <<EOF) What do you think? -- Sylvain PS: I've already posted on tramp-devel mailing list but it seems there is no activity there.