Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!minya!jc
From: jc@minya.UUCP (John Chambers)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Curses & Terminfo
Message-ID: <465@minya.UUCP>
Date: 12 Feb 88 15:02:51 GMT
References: <11664@brl-adm.ARPA> <1686@rtech.UUCP> <10023@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com>
Organization: home
Lines: 26
Summary: How to build terminfo entry?

> > 	/usr/lib/terminfo isn't a file, it is a directory.  Each
> > 	terminal's terminfo entry is in a separate file, whose name
> > 	is the name of the terminal.  ...
> 
> On my 7300, (3b1 with 20meg disk), the terminfo came with the
> system software, 

That happens here, too, and things like vi use terminfo.  It is
a lot faster, but there is a new problem introduced.  With the 
old termcap, you could just edit /etc/termcap to make an entry
for a new terminal.  With terminfo, the files are in some sort
of binary form (presumably a dump of some memory data structures
for speed of loading).  You can't edit these.

Presumably you must edit some ascii source and then run some
command to build the binary file, but I've been unable to find
any description of how to do it in the manuals.  This terminal
is sorta like a vt100, except it has more lines.  I'm using a
vt100 entry, which works, but there are those unused lines that
I'd like to use.  

Can anyone post a description of how one goes about cloning an
old terminfo entry and building a modified entry?

-- 
John Chambers <{adelie,ima,maynard,mit-eddie}!minya!{jc,root}> (617/484-6393)