Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!husc6!cmcl2!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: terminfo
Message-ID: <8431@smoke.ARPA>
Date: 4 Sep 88 08:08:42 GMT
References: <508@altos86.UUCP> <8377@smoke.ARPA> <1553@mcgp1.UUCP> <8412@smoke.ARPA> <24729@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 17

In article <24729@bu-cs.BU.EDU> madd@bu-it.bu.edu (Jim Frost) writes:
>My vote is against terminfo.  I found several problems with the
>supplied terminfo entries ...
>I tried to fix the problems, but there was NO documentation on how to
>do it, and the terminfo information is not in a format such that it
>can be figured out in a reasonable amount of time.

Sure there is documentation.  It's TERMINFO(4) in the manual, which
closely approximates the Berkeley TERMCAP(5) manual entry.  Terminfo
terminal description source files are more readable and easier to
handle than the /etc/termcap database.  You just edit the file and
run "tic" over it to install the updated description in the database.

Now, if your vendor neglected to supply you with the terminal
description text files, that is the real problem.  They should be
provided even with a binary distribution (although they don't need
to be loaded onto the system disk).