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From: ruck@beach.cis.ufl.edu (John Ruckstuhl)
Newsgroups: comp.terminals,comp.unix.questions,cis.consult
Subject: TERMCAP / TERMINFO difference?
Message-ID: <24636@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>
Date: 30 Sep 90 04:36:50 GMT
Sender: news@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU
Reply-To: ruck@beach.cis.ufl.edu ()
Organization: UF CIS Department
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Please give me a history lesson --

Information in the TERMCAP database seems to be almost duplicated by
information in the TERMINFO database.  Why?  

Is it faster to access TERMINFO-info than TERMCAP-info?

Does typical software (eg, "vi") know to look first at one, then, if
unsuccessful, look at the other database?
How is TERMCAP-info kept synchronized with $TERMINFO-info?  Does it
depend only on the diligence of the system administrator?

A "strings" on /usr/ucb/vi seemed to indicate it used a search path 
TERMINFO, and maybe doesn't even look to TERMCAP.

I am using SunOS 4.1 on SPARCstations

Thank you for your comments,
ruck.
--
John R Ruckstuhl, Jr
University of Florida		ruck@cis.ufl.edu, uflorida!ruck