termcap str + params -> control seq. How?

[Brandon S. Allbery KB8JRR/AA]

As quoted from <4866 at cernvax.cern.ch> by jmg at cernvax.cern.ch (mike gerard):
+---------------
| But terminfo has nothing in there for switching between 80-column and
| 132-column mode (useful when emulating an IBM 3278-5): what would you
| suggest that I do there?
+---------------

I defined rs3 as the name of the terminfo description to use for a "wider"
version of the terminal, rs1 as the one for a "narrower" version, and is3 in
each to be the string to set the terminal to the proper mode.

+---------------
| I could also do with a sequence to set the cursor type (block/underline,
| blinking/unblinking).
+---------------

Look at the uses of civis/cnorm/cvvis.

+---------------
| Doubtless other people have other ideas and needs: what should we all do
| if we only have terminfo?
+---------------

Gradually expand it to be useful *while arranging for compatibility*, as AT&T
has been doing.  Granted, it's a slow process, but I find that I only have to
keep *one* terminfo description for a terminal, versus as many different
termcaps as makers of programs that corrupt it in their own incompatible ways.
(SVR3, SCO, Informix, Unify, MultiView, Progress, Uniplex, ... every single
new program we get has a new termcap-variant, most of which can be folded into
a single SVR3.2 terminfo entry with little or no loss of information.)  Since
I have to maintain all these things, having one *standard* terminal capability
database format is exceedingly useful.

++Brandon
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