Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ames!nrl-cmf!cmcl2!phri!marob!daveh
From: daveh@marob.MASA.COM (Dave Hammond)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix
Subject: re: OOPS and Foxbase
Message-ID: <379@marob.MASA.COM>
Date: 23 Aug 88 17:15:54 GMT
Reply-To: daveh@marob.masa.com (Dave Hammond)
Distribution: na
Organization: ESCC  New York City
Lines: 32

>In article <6808@well.UUCP>, dave@well.UUCP (Dave Hughes) writes:
>
>I've run into the exact same problem that you have seen when entering new
>terminals into the /etc/termcap file.
>
>Apparently, the OOPS is an exclaimation of suprise by curses when it encounters
>things in the termcap file it doesn't understand.  This doesn't seem to be a
>documented feature.  I have *not* seen this problem in terminfo files.

OOPS is indeed an expression of surprise, but from the Termcap routine
tgoto(), not Curses. Which also explains why Terminfo does not exhibit the
problem.

It is documented in an older V7 TERMCAP(3) manpage:
`If a % sequence is given which is not understood, then tgoto returns OOPS.'

>
>I have seen the OOPS result in two different cases:
>
>	1. Any kind of capatilized capabilities in the termcap entry, such as
>	   "AL", etc.[...stuff deleted...]
>	2. Any time there are the following type of push strings in the
>	   capability, for example, %p1 or %p2 [...more deleted...]

Most notably, OOPS appears when the CM capability is absent (as is the case
with plain tty mode). Curses knows enough to just output spaces and newlines
if it receives OOPS from tgoto, but programs making direct Termcap calls
may not know to check for this (as appears to be the case with FoxBase).

Dave Hammond
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