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termcap and terminfo

By John Strang, Linda Mui, Tim O'Reilly
April 1988
Pages: 261
ISBN 10: 0-937175-22-6 | ISBN 13: 9780937175224
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Description

For UNIX system administrators and programmers. This handbook provides information on writing and debugging terminal descriptions, as well as terminal initialization, for the two UNIX terminal databases.
Full Description

While termcap and terminfo are no longer as important as they once were, due to the growth of the X terminal market and increased standardization among ASCII terminals, handling different terminal types can still be a headache for system administrators. The termcap and terminfo databases are UNIX's solution to the difficulty of supporting many terminals without writing special drivers for each terminal. Termcap (BSD) and terminfo (System V) describe the features of hundreds of terminals, together with a library of routines that allow programs to use those capabilities. This book documents hundreds of capabilities and syntax for termcap and terminfo, writing and debugging terminal descriptions, and terminal initialization. Contents include:
  • Terminal independence: the need for termcap and terminfo.
  • Reading termcap and terminfo entries.
  • Capability syntax.
  • Initializing the terminal environment.
  • Writing termcap and terminfo entries.
  • Converting between termcap and terminfo.
  • Detailed descriptions of the capabilities.
  • Screen dimensions and cursor movement.
  • Initialization and reset.
  • Special and equivalent terminals.
  • Many useful appendices.

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termcap & terminfo Review,  June 17 1998
Submitted by James Jones   [Respond | View]



If you have to deal with termcap or terminfo, and
especially if you find yourself having to write
or modify a terminal specification, this book is
essential. The seemingly endless forest of
terminal capabilities are broken down into
logical groups. Were I to make one suggestion
for a fourth edition, it would be that it include
the capabilities that apparently were adopted
after the third edition was written that control
color settings on terminals and terminal
emulators capable of color.

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Media reviews "I've been working with both termcap and terminfo for years now, and I was confident that I had a handle on them, but reading this remarkable little book gave me some valuable new insights into terminal setting in UNIX." --Root Journal, Sept/Oct 1990

"termcap & terminfo has been invaluable at explaining what all those strange characters mean in /etc/termcap. The real value of this one would come if I decided to build my own terminal type. I haven't done that, but the book has surely won back its purchase price by helping me add some flashy screen handling to simple shell scripts." --UNIX Today, Sep. 17, 1990

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