Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2002 12:37:52 +0100 (CET) From: Harti Brandt <brandt@fokus.gmd.de> To: Ruslan Ermilov <ru@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm@toybox.placo.com>, <arch@FreeBSD.ORG>, <jasone@canonware.com> Subject: Re: termcap versus terminfo Message-ID: <20020117123219.R67162-100000@beagle.fokus.gmd.de> In-Reply-To: <20020117120319.L27310@sunbay.com>
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On Thu, 17 Jan 2002, Ruslan Ermilov wrote: RE>On Thu, Jan 17, 2002 at 01:44:39AM -0800, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: RE>> RE>> For starters I'm not particularly a terminfo supporter, my main RE>> concern is seeing something that's easy to use and works. But RE>> I feel the current FreeBSD scheme doesen't work - at least not RE>> from an administration standpoint. RE>> RE>> The current FreeBSD scheme with the compiled termcap.db RE>> has terrible documentation. In fact the only mention of the RE>> need to use cap_mkdb to build termcap.db is in the cap_mkdb RE>> man page, and it's not even a mention, it's just a link in RE>> SEE ALSO. It's not mentioned in the man page for termcap. RE>> RE>Not true. It's referenced from the FILES section of termcap(5). RE> RE>> I don't see as how any admin is going to figure out how to add a terminal RE>> description other than trial and error so what "user friendliness" gained by RE>> holding to the human-readable /etc/termcap format is lost in the current RE>> scheme and really shouldn't be an issue to use in deciding between RE>> termcap and terminfo. RE>> RE>What's wrong with reading termcap(5)? :-) It's misleading because of numerous references to terminfo(5). So we have a terminfo man page, but no terminfo. terminfo(5) in turn refers to term(5) which describes files we don't use. harti NB: neither terminfo nor termcap is in the new POSIX. The only mention there is to 'historic implementations [of displays] which use either termcap or terminfo' :-) So, from the standard point of view, we are free to do it either way. -- harti brandt, http://www.fokus.gmd.de/research/cc/cats/employees/hartmut.brandt/private brandt@fokus.fhg.de To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message
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