Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!sugar!ficc!peter
From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: terminfo
Keywords: terminfo, curses
Message-ID: <1486@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 13 Sep 88 15:27:24 GMT
References: <508@altos86.UUCP> <10544@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com> <1389@zen.co.uk> <3193@pegasus.UUCP>
Organization: SCADA
Lines: 42

In article <3193@pegasus.UUCP>, hansen@pegasus.UUCP (Tony L. Hansen) writes:
> It's been interesting watching the recent discussions about terminfo and
> curses, asking about the why's and wherefores, etc. As one of the people who
> has been involved in the evolution of terminfo and curses, I thought I'd
> add a little bit of real information to the net bandwidth.

Fine. I've got some more questions, if you don't mind...

> The free-form input format and longer names, however, make it considerably
> harder (and slower) to interpret the input file.

Nonesense. I wrote a termcap emulation for CP/M in 1981 that supported long
names. I didn't actually time it, but since the code I wrote did a strcmp
type search (abort as soon as a match fails) it might even be faster
than a two-byte match (which is what you seem to be implying termcap does).

Also, there isn't much you can do to speed things up that will beat having
a TERMCAP environment entry.

> 5) I want to define my own capabilites

> The user defined terminfo capabilities user0 to user9 were added in SysVr3.1.
> You're free to do with these as you will.

I want to call my new capability 'Fred'.

  5a) I want my users to be able to change their terminfo entries quickly
  and easily. Right now they have to create their own terminfo directory
  tree, compile it, and remember to change back when they want to use the
  standard ones. With TERMCAP they could just edit their environment. No
  need to fill /usr/tmp up with little terminfo files.

10) Use the terminfo routines in other environments. I can define a gamecap
file and use the termcap routines to access it. The entries in there don't
have to have anything to do with terminals.

11) Use standard UNIX tools on a terminfo file. What's the quickest way to
get a listing of all the terminals supported under terminfo? I don't know
any easy ones.
-- 
Peter da Silva  `-_-'  Ferranti International Controls Corporation.
"Have you hugged  U  your wolf today?"            peter@ficc.uu.net