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From: gwyn@brl-tgr.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: net.info-terms
Subject: Re: wishful thinking dept.
Message-ID: <2686@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 31-Oct-85 20:15:18 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.2686
Posted: Thu Oct 31 20:15:18 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 2-Nov-85 07:48:35 EST
References: <292@cisden.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab
Lines: 60

The termcap capabilities described in the 1980 manual entry
have since been augmented somewhat, and several of their
meanings have been clarified; an updated manual entry is in
the works which may make it into 4.3BSD.  An early version
of this manual entry has been distributed with BRL software.

However, it is true that there has been no consensus on
capabilities for such things as box-construction graphics
and color.  I believe Mark once mentioned that terminfo
may support these at some future date; if we could all
come to a consensus on what these capabilities are then
termcap names for them could easily be invented (maybe
adopt Lyle's) and added to the "official" description.

There is of course a limit to how far the termcap model
of a "terminal" can be pushed; it really cannot cope
with true graphics, bitmaps, etc.  Terminfo has a better
design for adding things such as multiple windows, etc.,
but its underlying model is similar.

In general, termcap has enough significant design
deficiencies that future efforts should be concentrated
on terminfo instead.

> While I'm at it, wouldn't it be nice if termcap....
> 
> 	...looked for an entry in ~.termcap before running off to
> 	   /etc/termcap?

The TERMCAP environment variable, while not accomplishing
precisely the same action, is intended for this sort of
thing.

> 	...set BUFSIZ to 2048 rather than 1024?

Chris Torek answered this one nicely.

> 	...edited out redundancies from the termcap entries (to make them
> 	   smaller, barring the 2048 BUFSIZ mentioned above)?

We do this ourselves for terminals in heavy use here;
their entries in /etc/termcap are self-contained and
non-redundant.

> 	...had a way of saying, essentially, that rs is the same string as
> 	   is (for example)? This could certainly be done by convention,
> 	   by saying in some authoritative way that rs defaults to is if
> 	   is is not given, but tset (for one) doesn't use that rule, and
> 	   therefore it isn't followed. I guess that I want a software way
> 	   in termcap to enforce defaults.

This should be a tset/reset function, not a termcap rule.

> And now that I've finished knocking everything, I'll say that I'm posting
> to mod.sources a program which I knocked together to provide termcap
> capabilities to shell programs. It, for example, would clear the screen
> given the command "tc cd", turn on an auxilliary printer given "tc po",
> and place the cursor in the middle of the screen given "tc cm 11 39".

SVR2 (terminfo) has a corresponding utility called "tputs".