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From: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Termcap/terminfo magic cookies (sg#, xmc#)
Message-ID: <5185@ncoast.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 4-Nov-87 17:14:12 EST
Article-I.D.: ncoast.5185
Posted: Wed Nov  4 17:14:12 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 8-Nov-87 11:56:10 EST
References: <846@quacky.UUCP>
Reply-To: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery)
Followup-To: comp.unix.questions
Organization: Cleveland Public Access UN*X, Cleveland, Oh
Lines: 24

As quoted from <846@quacky.UUCP> by dce@mips.UUCP (David Elliott):
+---------------
| Now, the question I have is what is the difference between not defining
| these and defining them to be 0?
| 
| From my standpoint, they mean the same thing. If a terminal has a 0-width
| magic cookie, that means it puts 0 extra characters when it switches to
| standout mode. If it doesn't have a magic cookie, that means it doesn't
| put out any extra characters when it switches to standout mode.
+---------------

I believe the idea is that a zero-width magic cookie is still a magic cookie.
Why?  Well, the purpose of the "magic cookie" is to inform the video hardware
that all characters output from the screen position of the cookie to the next
magic cookie or to the end of the screen.On the other hand, NO magic cookie
means that an sg/smso will simply set a flag somewhere such that subsequent
characters recieved from the terminal's input stream will come out in the
specified attribute, _regardless_of_screen_position_.

Of course, my understanding was that this was SUPPOSED to be flagged in
termcap with the boolean "ms" attribute (terminfo: "msgr")....
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery		     necntc!ncoast!allbery@harvard.harvard.edu
 {harvard!necntc,well!hoptoad,sun!mandrill!hal,uunet!hnsurg3}!ncoast!allbery