terminfo vs. termcap

[Robert Claeson]

In article <6966 at june.cs.washington.edu>, mckenzie at june.cs.washington.edu (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.

No. There are a number of applications that runs under System V that
still wants termcap, using their own routines to read that file.

> 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 (or just well hidden), and reading the binary
> is no help.

Try the command 'infocmp' (if Apple includes it in their distribution).
It will decompile terminfo entries for you, in almost any format you
want. ANd it can even generate termcap entries from the terminfo ones.

> I've tried to construct a terminfo file from the termcap file, but
> it doesn't quite work right, but it looks ok.

Try the command 'captoinfo'.
-- 
Robert Claeson, ERBE DATA AB, P.O. Box 77, S-175 22 Jarfalla, Sweden
"No problems." -- Alf
Tel: +46 758-202 50  EUnet:    rclaeson at ERBE.SE  uucp:   uunet!erbe.se!rclaeson
Fax: +46 758-197 20  Internet: rclaeson at ERBE.SE  BITNET: rclaeson at ERBE.SE