Re: Updated terminfo and termcap definitions [Was: Re: 1.7.1 release date? (termcap)]

[Andy Koppe <andy dot koppe at gmail dot com>]

2009/11/21 Charles Wilson:
>> This is a heads-up concerning changes to terminfo/termcap defintions. As
>> discussed on cygwin-developers, here's a stab at providing /etc/termcap
>> via terminfo:
>>
>> http://cygwin.cwilson.fastmail.fm/ITP/terminfo-5.7_20091114-10.dist
> Updated versions:
>
> cygwin-1.5
> http://cygwin.cwilson.fastmail.fm/ITP/terminfo-5.7_20091114-2.dist.tar
>
> cygwin-1.7
> http://cygwin.cwilson.fastmail.fm/ITP/terminfo-5.7_20091114-11.dist.tar

Looking good, except for this minor issue:

$ etc/postinstall/terminfo.sh
chmod: cannot operate on dangling symlink `Apple_Terminal'

Will there be an update for terminfo0 as well? A bunch of apps still
depend on it (although apparently not on the kbs entry, as backspace
works anyway).


> The cygwin-1.5 version incorporates the backspace=\177 changes for
> screen, but not the cygwin console or xterm.

I think screen goes with whatever is set in its host terminal, i.e. if
I change it to ^H in mintty (and restart), screen follows suit. Hence
it's probably better to leave it at ^H for 1.5.


> These two release improve upon yesterday's /etc/termcap replacement:
>
> 1) actually include all the necessary terminal dependencies, so the
> complex terminal descriptions (for, e.g., rxvt or xterm) actually work.

Yay, the termcap xterm entry now uses \e[?1049h instead of \e[?47h to
switch to the alternate screen, which means no more old alternate
screen contents showing up when invoking 'less' or 'man'.

Although, come to think of it, that doesn't happen on 1.7 anyway, so
does the 'less' there already use terminfo?

> 2) add (copy) aliases and term entries for terminals that were in the
> termcap-20050421-1 version of /etc/termcap, but are not represented in
> terminfo. ÂThis is *probably* overkill, but for now I want to ensure
> that "if it was in the old /etc/termcap, it is in the new one".

You mean "pcansi-mono25" and stuff like that? I'd drop them. If
they're not in terminfo, very few things will work correctly anyway.
If they can't be dropped now, when can they?


> 3) add entries for hi-color variations of screen, xterm, and rxvt.

Good idea. Thanks!

Andy