From:	"Mark E." <snowball3 AT bigfoot DOT com>
To:	djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
Date:	Fri, 27 Jul 2001 10:17:18 -0400
MIME-Version:	1.0
Subject:	Re: termios cursor motion support
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In-reply-to:	<2427-Fri27Jul2001122251+0300-eliz@is.elta.co.il>
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> Shouldn't the escape sequences supported by this emulation be
> available to termcap functions such as tgetstr via the same mechanism
> you already implemented for extended keys?

If you mean add capabilities to djgpp's termcap entry, then yes they need to 
be added so programs that use tgetstr, etc. will know about them.  

> Not necessarily: BIOS tty functions support color.  (Let me know if
> you want more details about this.)  So this is basically a design
> decision.

Do you mean the int 0x10 functions ah=08 and 09 to read and write a character
plus attribute at the current cursor position?

Using the bios tty isn't the fastest method available that's true. But the 
bios tty does take care of details that conio must deal with itself. For 
example, conio goes to the trouble of handling mono and ega. I imagine 
termios would have to do the same.  

So I think the best course is to continue with the bios tty method for now. 
If it proves to be too slow, drop it for something faster.  

> One disadvantage of conio is its large footprint which you
> might want to avoid

True. But there are more disadvantages I want to avoid. Using conio would 
mean that a large amount of non-posix symbols would become involved in a 
posix function. conio's output functions are geared toward null terminated 
strings while the termios read and write functions specify a length. And 
conio's getch clashes with the curses function getch.  

Mark

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