- The <STRONG>tgetent</STRONG> routine loads the entry for <EM>name</EM>. It returns
- 1 on success, 0 if there is no such entry, and -1 if the
- terminfo database could not be found. The emulation ig-
- nores the buffer pointer <EM>bp</EM>.
+ The <STRONG>tgetent</STRONG> routine loads the entry for <EM>name</EM>. It returns:
+
+ 1 on success,
+
+ 0 if there is no such entry (or that it is a generic
+ type, having too little information for curses ap-
+ plications to run), and
+
+ -1 if the terminfo database could not be found.
+
+ This differs from the <EM>termcap</EM> library in two ways:
+
+ - The emulation ignores the buffer pointer <EM>bp</EM>. The
+ <EM>termcap</EM> library would store a copy of the terminal
+ description in the area referenced by this pointer.
+ However, ncurses stores its terminal descriptions in
+ compiled binary form, which is not the same thing.
+
+ - There is a difference in return codes. The <EM>termcap</EM>
+ library does not check if the terminal description
+ is marked with the <EM>generic</EM> capability, or if the
+ terminal description has cursor-addressing.