Xref: utzoo comp.unix.questions:11168 comp.unix.aux:600
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.aux
Subject: Re: terminfo vs. termcap
Keywords: Why do we need two different terminal capability widgets?
Message-ID: <9426@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 18 Jan 89 21:20:55 GMT
References: <6966@june.cs.washington.edu>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 18

In article <6966@june.cs.washington.edu> mckenzie@uw-june.UUCP (Neil McKenzie) writes:
>This is really dumb.  It is really mysterious why there is even an
>/etc/termcap file and even a man page to go with it because the
>termcap file is just ignored.

Many applications, for example those developed in Berkeley environments,
use /etc/termcap.  I don't know whether AUX includes "termlib" to provide
the access functions but it might (SVR2 did).

>What is even more unfriendly is that the source descriptions are
>compiled into an unreadable format.  This makes it very hard to
>study examples, since the source formats seem to be unavailable ...

There are a variety of cap-to-info tools, terminfo compilers ("tic"
is the usual name), decompilers, etc.  I don't know what AUX provides.

The reason for the binary format is to speed up loading of the
terminal description.