Terminfo

[Brandon Allbery]

Expires:

Quoted from <2604 at brl-smoke.ARPA> ["Termcap, terminfo, and curses."], by SLG6M%USU.BITNET at WISCVM.WISC.EDU...
+---------------
| > Read TERM(4) and rewrite using terminfo.  You won't be sorry; terminfo is much
| > cleaner than termcap.
| 
| You *can't* "rewrite using terminfo."  Because terminfo is just a DATABASE.
| The routines in question are called curses (which, by the way, also exist
| on non-AT&T systems like BSD).
+---------------

But (take my word for it) a program written to use termcap is a royal pain in
the a** to convert to curses.  ``Terminfo'' is the name of a database, yes,
but it's also commonly used as the name for the low-level routines used to
access the terminfo database.  They are, however, accessed via -lcurses.
Still, the low-level routines never heard of windows, etc.; and while curses
can't use a terminal's status line, the low-level terminfo routines are able
to use the "tsl", "fsl", "dsl", and "eslok" attributes.  Amongst others.

++Brandon
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