Curses & Terminfo

[Russ Spence]

In article <11664 at brl-adm.ARPA> FRAZIER%AFGLSC.SPAN at star.stanford.edu writes:
>
>	I own an AT&T 3B1 running Unix SysV.  I have successfully compiled
>a software package that is looking for a file called "/usr/lib/terminfo."
>I contacted the author of the program in question and he said that the
>only SYSV machine he had access to had the /usr/lib/terminfo file and as
>far as he knew,  every SYSV had that file.  I have used SYSV's (other than
>my own) and I have never seen this file.  Does this file actually exist 
>and if so,  is there any chance someone could send me a copy of it.
>(Providing it's not Huge.)  If not,  can someone tell me what this file
>does and provide some suggestions as to how to avoid losing?  I'd
>appreciate any help I can get..

	/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.  These files reside in directory
	/usr/lib/terminfo/? where '?' is the first letter of the name
	of the terminal.  For example, the terminfo description of a
	vt100 is in file /usr/lib/terminfo/v/vt100.  The terminfo files
	come from a source file that has been "compiled", so the terminfo
	files are in a binary format (i.e. you can't just cat them).

	On the 3B's, curses uses terminfo. But, other implementations of
	SYSV by other vendors may still use termcap.  On the other 3B's
	(I'm not too familiar with the 3B1), the terminfo directory is
	part of the standard software.

--
Russell Spence    Relational Technology Inc.   {sun,mtxinu,ihnp4}!rtech!russ

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