These routines are included as a conversion aid for programs that use
- the termcap library. Their parameters are the same and the routines
+ the termcap library. Their parameters are the same, but the routines
are emulated using the terminfo database. Thus, they can only be used
to query the capabilities of entries for which a terminfo entry has
been compiled.
@@ -149,86 +150,165 @@
o Normally the ncurses library is compiled with terminfo support. In
that case, tgoto uses tparm(3x) (a more capable formatter).
- The tputs routine is described on the curs_terminfo(3x) manual page.
+ However, tparm is not a termcap feature, and portable termcap ap-
+ plications should not rely upon its availability.
+
+ The tputs routine is described on the curs_terminfo(3x) manual page.
It can retrieve capabilities by either termcap or terminfo name.
- The variables PC, UP and BC are set by tgetent to the terminfo entry's
+ The variables PC, UP and BC are set by tgetent to the terminfo entry's
data for pad_char, cursor_up and backspace_if_not_bs, respectively. UP
- is not used by ncurses. PC is used in the tdelay_output function. BC
- is used in the tgoto emulation. The variable ospeed is set by ncurses
+ is not used by ncurses. PC is used in the tdelay_output function. BC
+ is used in the tgoto emulation. The variable ospeed is set by ncurses
in a system-specific coding to reflect the terminal speed.
- Except where explicitly noted, routines that return an integer return
- ERR upon failure and OK (SVr4 only specifies "an integer value other
+ Except where explicitly noted, routines that return an integer return
+ ERR upon failure and OK (SVr4 only specifies "an integer value other
than ERR") upon successful completion.
Routines that return pointers return NULL on error.
- If you call tgetstr to fetch ca or any other parameterized string, be
- aware that it will be returned in terminfo notation, not the older and
+ If you call tgetstr to fetch ca or any other parameterized string, be
+ aware that it will be returned in terminfo notation, not the older and
not-quite-compatible termcap notation. This will not cause problems if
- all you do with it is call tgoto or tparm, which both expand terminfo-
- style strings as terminfo. (The tgoto function, if configured to sup-
- port termcap, will check if the string is indeed terminfo-style by
- looking for "%p" parameters or "$<..>" delays, and invoke a termcap-
+ all you do with it is call tgoto or tparm, which both expand terminfo-
+ style strings as terminfo. (The tgoto function, if configured to sup-
+ port termcap, will check if the string is indeed terminfo-style by
+ looking for "%p" parameters or "$<..>" delays, and invoke a termcap-
style parser if the string does not appear to be terminfo).
- Because terminfo conventions for representing padding in string capa-
- bilities differ from termcap's, tputs("50"); will put out a literal
- "50" rather than busy-waiting for 50 milliseconds. Cope with it.
+ Because terminfo conventions for representing padding in string capa-
+ bilities differ from termcap's, users can be surprised:
+
+ otputs("50") in a terminfo system will put out a literal "50" rather
+ than busy-waiting for 50 milliseconds.
+
+ o However, if ncurses is configured to support termcap, it may also
+ have been configured to support the BSD-style padding.
+
+ In that case, tputs inspects strings passed to it, looking for dig-
+ its at the beginning of the string.
+
+ tputs("50") in a termcap system may wait for 50 milliseconds rather
+ than put out a literal "50"
Note that termcap has nothing analogous to terminfo's sgr string. One
- consequence of this is that termcap applications assume me (terminfo
+ consequence of this is that termcap applications assume me (terminfo
sgr0) does not reset the alternate character set. This implementation
checks for, and modifies the data shown to the termcap interface to ac-
commodate termcap's limitation in this respect.
- The XSI Curses standard, Issue 4 describes these functions. However,
- they are marked TO BE WITHDRAWN and may be removed in future versions.
-
- Neither the XSI Curses standard nor the SVr4 man pages documented the
- return values of tgetent correctly, though all three were in fact re-
- turned ever since SVr1. In particular, an omission in the XSI Curses
- documentation has been misinterpreted to mean that tgetent returns OK
- or ERR. Because the purpose of these functions is to provide compati-
- bility with the termcap library, that is a defect in XCurses, Issue 4,
+
+
+ These functions are provided for supporting legacy applications, and
+ should not be used in new programs:
+
+ o The XSI Curses standard, Issue 4 describes these functions. Howev-
+ er, they are marked TO BE WITHDRAWN and may be removed in future
+ versions.
+
+ o X/Open Curses, Issue 5 (December 2007) marked the termcap interface
+ (along with vwprintw and vwscanw) as withdrawn.
+
+ Neither the XSI Curses standard nor the SVr4 man pages documented the
+ return values of tgetent correctly, though all three were in fact re-
+ turned ever since SVr1. In particular, an omission in the XSI Curses
+ documentation has been misinterpreted to mean that tgetent returns OK
+ or ERR. Because the purpose of these functions is to provide compati-
+ bility with the termcap library, that is a defect in XCurses, Issue 4,
Version 2 rather than in ncurses.
+
+
External variables are provided for support of certain termcap applica-
tions. However, termcap applications' use of those variables is poorly
documented, e.g., not distinguishing between input and output. In par-
- ticular, some applications are reported to declare and/or modify os-
+ ticular, some applications are reported to declare and/or modify os-peed.
- The comment that only the first two characters of the id parameter are
+ The comment that only the first two characters of the id parameter are
used escapes many application developers. The original BSD 4.2 termcap
library (and historical relics thereof) did not require a trailing null
- NUL on the parameter name passed to tgetstr, tgetnum and tgetflag.
- Some applications assume that the termcap interface does not require
+ NUL on the parameter name passed to tgetstr, tgetnum and tgetflag.
+ Some applications assume that the termcap interface does not require
the trailing NUL for the parameter name. Taking into account these is-
sues:
- o As a special case, tgetflag matched against a single-character
- identifier provided that was at the end of the terminal descrip-
+ o As a special case, tgetflag matched against a single-character
+ identifier provided that was at the end of the terminal descrip-
tion. You should not rely upon this behavior in portable programs.
- This implementation disallows matches against single-character ca-
+ This implementation disallows matches against single-character ca-
pability names.
- o This implementation disallows matches by the termcap interface
+ o This implementation disallows matches by the termcap interface
against extended capability names which are longer than two charac-
ters.
+ The BSD termcap function tgetent returns the text of a termcap entry in
+ the buffer passed as an argument. This library (like other terminfo
+ implementations) does not store terminal descriptions as text. It sets
+ the buffer contents to a null-terminated string.
+
+
+
+ This library includes a termcap.h header, for compatibility with other
+ implementations. But the header is rarely used because the other im-
+ plementations are not strictly compatible.
+
+ The original BSD termcap (through 4.3BSD) had no header file which gave
+ function prototypes, because that was a feature of ANSI C. BSD termcap
+ was written several years before C was standardized. However, there
+ were two different termcap.h header files in the BSD sources:
+
+ o One was used internally by the jove editor in 2BSD through 4.4BSD.
+ It defined global symbols for the termcap variables which it used.
+
+ o The other appeared in 4.4BSD Lite Release 2 (mid-1993) as part of
+ libedit (also known as the editline library). The CSRG source his-
+ tory shows that this was added in mid-1992. The libedit header
+ file was used internally, as a convenience for compiling the edit-
+ line library. It declared function prototypes, but no global vari-
+ ables.
+
+ The header file from libedit was added to NetBSD's termcap library in
+ mid-1994.
+
+ Meanwhile, GNU termcap was under development, starting in 1990. The
+ first release (termcap 1.0) in 1991 included a termcap.h header. The
+ second release (termcap 1.1) in September 1992 modified the header to
+ use const for the function prototypes in the header where one would ex-
+ pect the parameters to be read-only. This was a difference versus the
+ original BSD termcap. The prototype for tputs also differed, but in
+ that instance, it was libedit which differed from BSD termcap.
+
+ A copy of GNU termcap 1.3 was bundled with bash in mid-1993, to support
+ the readline library.
+
+ A termcap.h file was provided in ncurses 1.8.1 (November 1993). That
+ reflected influence by emacs (rather than jove) and GNU termcap:
+
+ o it provided declarations for a few global symbols used by emacs
+
+ o it provided function prototypes (using const).
+
+ o a prototype for tparam (a GNU termcap feature) was provided.
+
+ Later (in mid-1996) the tparam function was removed from ncurses. As a
+ result, there are differences between any of the four implementations,
+ which must be taken into account by programs which can work with all
+ termcap library interfaces.
+