Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 170276
RFE: build termcap from the ncurses source package
Last modified: 2007-11-30 17:11:14 EST
When the termcap and terminfo databases aren't synchronized, weird behavior starts cropping up in applications. The termcap file is already generated from the terminfo sources, so it probably makes sense to merge the source packages for the two to reduce the maintenance overhead.
At first sight you are right. termcap/terminfo should be synchronized. But there is one important thing: termcap is very old terminal-capability description. It should not be used 'today'. For instance: a termcap-record should not be greater than 1024 bytes. a terminfo-record can be 4096 bytes 'large'. Therefore (and not only), not all (described in terminfo) can be translated into termcap. Yes, ncurses ('new version only') can translate termcap-record > 1024, but not all 'old programs' use ncurses (for instance Jove - my last 'bug'). !!! By translation I mean 'removing some capabilities' !!! As described above, we should 'fight', that termcap will not be used. Resume: 'termcap' should not be used. This information is 15-20 years 'old'. It is a crime, that we have (today 2005) two terminal-descriptions for one terminal/terminal emulator. One 'full description' == terminfo One 'reduced description' == termcap We should not spend our power to keep this schizophrenic constellation alive. We should not 'build' a Linux-specific-extension for termcap to keep this nonsense alive. We should have a power to 'stay hard' .