terminfo programming

Converting a termcap description to a terminfo description

CAUTION: The terminfo database is designed to take the place of the termcap database. Because of the many programs and processes that have been written with and for the termcap database, it is not feasible to do a complete cutover at one time. Any conversion from termcap to terminfo requires some experience with both databases. All entries into the databases should be handled with extreme caution. These files are important to the operation of your terminal.

The captoinfo(1M) command converts termcap descriptions to oldterminfo(4) descriptions. When a file is passed to captoinfo, it looks for termcap descriptions and writes the equivalent terminfo descriptions on the standard output. For example,

   captoinfo /usr/share/lib/termcap

converts the file /usr/share/lib/termcap to terminfo source, preserving comments and other extraneous information within the file. The command line

   captoinfo

looks up the current terminal in the termcap database, as specified by the $TERM and $TERMCAP environment variables and converts it to terminfo.

If you must have both termcap and terminfo terminal descriptions, keep the terminfo description only and use infocmp -C to get the termcap descriptions. This is recommended because the terminfo entry will be more complete, descriptive, and accurate than the termcap entry possibly could be.

If you have been using cursor optimization programs with the -ltermcap or -ltermlib option in the cc command line, those programs will still be functional. However, these options should be replaced with the -locurses option.