From gerolima@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Mark Gerolimatos) Subject: Termcap/VI problem... Date: Sun, 31 May 1992 21:00:20 GMT Try again.... I am adding in a new termcap entry for some bizarre terminal I bought. Works fine, except that I can't get VI (and VI only) to take the termcap entry. Keeps on complaining about unknown terminal types. Just to be safe, I took a similar termcap entry, copied, and renamed all the name fields. Nope, VI still didn't take it. Any suggestions? -Mark P.S. Please resond directly, if at all possible ====================================Cut Here==================================== Mark Gerolimatos gerolima@xenon.stanford.edu "Righteousness comes ONLY from Jesus Christ... @netlabs.com ...NEVER from an apron." -Jack T. Chick ================================================================================ From gerolima@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Mark Gerolimatos) Subject: RE: Termcap/VI problem (got it, thanks) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1992 20:24:01 GMT Oops, forgot to mention that I am running SunOS 4.1.1 Turns out that vi (as in /usr/UCB/vi) uses termINFO in SunOs. Why, I'll never figure out. That was the problem. Thanx to all those who helped. -Mark ====================================Cut Here==================================== Mark Gerolimatos gerolima@xenon.stanford.edu "Righteousness comes ONLY from Jesus Christ... @netlabs.com ...NEVER from an apron." -Jack T. Chick "La justicia viene so'lo por Jesucristo ...NUNCA por un delantar." -por Jack. T. Chick ================================================================================ From terry@npd.Novell.COM (Terry Lambert) Subject: Re: Termcap/VI problem... Date: 1 Jun 92 22:57:27 GMT In article <1992May31.210020.10270@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> gerolima@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Mark Gerolimatos) writes: >Try again.... > >I am adding in a new termcap entry for some bizarre terminal I bought. Works >fine, except that I can't get VI (and VI only) to take the termcap entry. >Keeps on complaining about unknown terminal types. > >Just to be safe, I took a similar termcap entry, copied, and renamed all the >name fields. Nope, VI still didn't take it. > >Any suggestions? It is nearly 100% likely that your vi uses TERMINFO, *not* TERMCAP as the means of determining what escape sequences to use. This is true of SunOS and most SysV binary distributions. How to find out from the csh: strings `which vi` | grep term You'll see a message similar to one of the following:: corrupted terminfo entry terminfo entry too long terminfo file for "%s" terminal is not readable Ie: This vi was linked -ltermlib or something similar to: incomplete termcap entry Ie: this vi was linked with -ltermcap To solve your problem if this is the case: Download 'captoinfo' from your friendly neighborhood archive, compile it, and run it (alternately, you could learn to write terminfo entries). If you can get a hold of a System V box that has the terminfo of interest: To get a terminfo file from an already compiled terminfo database that doesn't have the source around (SCO is famous for this): System V (at least) has a command called "infocmp" which will dump an ASCII version of the compiled terminfo source for the terminal currently referred to by the TERM environment variable. Terry Lambert terry_lambert@gateway.novell.com terry@icarus.weber.edu -- my present or previous employers. From jpr@jpradley.jpr.com (Jean-Pierre Radley) Subject: Re: Termcap/VI problem... Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1992 03:56:15 GMT In article <1992May31.210020.10270@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> gerolima@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Mark Gerolimatos) writes: >I am adding in a new termcap entry for some bizarre terminal I bought. Works >fine, except that I can't get VI (and VI only) to take the termcap entry. >Keeps on complaining about unknown terminal types. >Just to be safe, I took a similar termcap entry, copied, and renamed all the >name fields. Nope, VI still didn't take it. >Any suggestions? I suggest that you provide your version of Unix when you post such a question. It is possible that your version of 'vi' knows nothing about termcap, and is using terminfo instead. >P.S. Please resond directly, if at all possible You post here, you read here... >====================================Cut Here==================================== > > Mark Gerolimatos > >gerolima@xenon.stanford.edu "Righteousness comes ONLY from Jesus Christ... > @netlabs.com ...NEVER from an apron." > -Jack T. Chick > >================================================================================ Your signature is abusively long. Not its contents, its length. Please recall that the news.* files suggest that 4 lines is sufficient for a signature block. -- Jean-Pierre Radley Unix in NYC jpr@jpr.com jpradley!jpr CIS: 72160,1341 From gert@greenie.gold.sub.org (Gert Doering) Subject: Re: Termcap/VI problem... Date: 2 Jun 92 14:26:35 GMT gerolima@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Mark Gerolimatos) writes: >I am adding in a new termcap entry for some bizarre terminal I bought. Works >fine, except that I can't get VI (and VI only) to take the termcap entry. >Keeps on complaining about unknown terminal types. If you had told us what kind of Unix you are using, it would be easier to answer... Nevertheless, on many unices VI uses not termcap but terminfo. gert -- Gert Doering | SubNet : gert@greenie.gold.sub.org | mailbox / uucp: Munich / FRG | InterNet: gdoering@physik.tu-muenchen.de | call (089)3243328 (089)3243228 | FidoNet : gert.doering@2:246/55.4 | login bbs / nuucp From gert@greenie.gold.sub.org (Gert Doering) Subject: Re: Termcap/VI problem (got it, thanks) Date: 2 Jun 92 21:41:15 GMT gerolima@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Mark Gerolimatos) writes: >Turns out that vi (as in /usr/UCB/vi) uses termINFO in SunOs. Why, >I'll never figure out. That was the problem. Why? Because terminfo is far superior to termcap - more features, faster access. gert -- Gert Doering | SubNet : gert@greenie.gold.sub.org | mailbox / uucp: Munich / FRG | InterNet: gdoering@physik.tu-muenchen.de | call (089)3243328 (089)3243228 | FidoNet : gert.doering@2:246/55.4 | login bbs / nuucp From guy@Auspex.COM (Guy Harris) Subject: Re: Termcap/VI problem (got it, thanks) Date: 4 Jun 92 23:04:19 GMT >>Turns out that vi (as in /usr/UCB/vi) uses termINFO in SunOs. Why, >>I'll never figure out. That was the problem. > >Why? Because terminfo is far superior to termcap - more features, faster >access. It may be (although you'll probably find plenty of people who don't think it's better; I'm pretty much neutral, so I'll let those people jump into the fray - preferably in "comp.unix.questions"), but it *wasn't* the reason. The reason was very simple: 1) we wanted an 8-bit clean "vi" for SunOS 4.1, to handle character sets such as ISO Latin #1; 2) the SVR3.1 "vi" was already 8-bit clean; 3) making the BSD "vi" 8-bit clean looked like a real chore; 4) the SVR3.1 "vi" used "terminfo"; 5) making the SVR3.1 "vi" use "termcap" looked like a real chore; 6) "vi" is such a sewer that nobody particularly wanted to undertake either of those chores; so we just dropped in the SVR3.1 "vi", with some changes to make it build under SunOS's SV environment (which, in 4.1[.x], doesn't have every single library or library routine from SVR3.1; the undocumented "-lgen" was left out, as were AT&T's decidedly non-standard routines for fetching character set information for the locale - we used the routines from the ANSI C draft standard, instead). That also picked up a bunch of post-version-3.7 bug fixes, and various other features such as "showmode"; "set showmode" puts an indicator on the bottom line showing what mode you're in. From terry@npd.Novell.COM (Terry Lambert) Subject: Re: Termcap/VI problem (got it, thanks) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1992 17:53:07 GMT In article <1992Jun02.214115.11997@greenie.gold.sub.org> gert@greenie.gold.sub.org (Gert Doering) writes: >gerolima@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Mark Gerolimatos) writes: > >>Turns out that vi (as in /usr/UCB/vi) uses termINFO in SunOs. Why, >>I'll never figure out. That was the problem. > >Why? Because terminfo is far superior to termcap - more features, faster >access. Superior features like "we thought of everything, so you can't possibly need to extend it, so we'll use a static structure for reading the file"? Faster access depends on how you set it up. It's perfectly acceptable to have your TERMCAP environment variable contain your entire termcap string; this means that it's already in your address space, automagically, when you run your app. See 'tset' (UNIX) and 'resize' (X). If I want better than ISO (8 color) escape sequences, at least I have a way to get them using termcap. The other drawback to terminfo is that if you don't have 'infocmp' and you don't have terminfo source (many AT&T distributions left terminfo source out), you have to write 'infocmp' or suffer with factory bugs. It's relatively easy, on the other hand, to edit /etc/termcap. One glaring use for this is to set "protect" to be reverse video on a Wyse-50, and use it From gerolima@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Mark Gerolimatos) Subject: Termcap/VI problem... Date: Sun, 31 May 1992 21:00:20 GMT Try again.... I am adding in a new termcap entry for some bizarre terminal I bought. Works fine, except that I can't get VI (and VI only) to take the termcap entry. Keeps on complaining about unknown terminal types. Just to be safe, I took a similar termcap entry, copied, and renamed all the name fields. Nope, VI still didn't take it. Any suggestions? -Mark P.S. Please resond directly, if at all possible ====================================Cut Here==================================== Mark Gerolimatos gerolima@xenon.stanford.edu "Righteousness comes ONLY from Jesus Christ... @netlabs.com ...NEVER from an apron." -Jack T. Chick ================================================================================ From terry@npd.Novell.COM (Terry Lambert) Subject: Re: Termcap/VI problem... Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1992 16:37:22 GMT In article <1992Jun02.035615.5315@jpradley.jpr.com> jpr@jpradley.jpr.com (Jean-Pierre Radley) writes: >In article <1992May31.210020.10270@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> gerolima@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Mark Gerolimatos) writes: >>====================================Cut Here==================================== >> >> Mark Gerolimatos >> >>gerolima@xenon.stanford.edu "Righteousness comes ONLY from Jesus Christ... >> @netlabs.com ...NEVER from an apron." >> -Jack T. Chick >> >>================================================================================ > >Your signature is abusively long. Not its contents, its length. >Please recall that the news.* files suggest that 4 lines is sufficient for a >signature block. >-- >Jean-Pierre Radley Unix in NYC jpr@jpr.com jpradley!jpr CIS: 72160,1341 ====================================Cut Here==================================== *****Mark Gerolimatos**gerolima@xenon.stanford.edu*"Righteousness comes ONLY fro m Jesus Christ...**@netlabs.com***...NEVER from an apron."*******-Jack T. Chick* * ====================