Subject: Re: ncurses/termcap, just won't clear the screen?
From: [email-masked] (Michael Condict)

21 May 1997 16:55:24 -0700
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In message <[email-masked]>, you write:
> I've just rebuilt termcap & ncurses, that went fine.  But now I'm 
> trying to run some of the test programs that ncurses has.  And it 
> appears that it just cannot erase the screen.  The curses is set to 
> the top of the window, but all the text is still there.  I've tried a 
> few different things for my TERM env variable, linux, ansi, pc-ansi, 
> vt100,  etc.  They all behaved the same.
> 
> Might I have forgotten a step somewhere?

I rebuilt termcap and the "less" program, which configured itself to
use libtermcap.  When it comes up, it says that my tty is not fully
functional, and then it treats it like a dumb scrolling teletype.  It
doesn't even know how to scroll backwards one line -- instead, it
redraws the whole screen.

I also observe that visual-history editing in bash (which uses termcap)
has the same defect.  Unlike the Unix version, where it displays
commands that are longer than one line on multiple screen lines,
allowing you to move back and forth among any of the lines, the Win32
version uses the fallback method of scrolling sideways and showing you
"<" or ">" characters to indicate that some of the line is off the
screen.  This requires only space and CR to implement, i.e. it works on
a completely dumb tty.

So it looks like termcap (and ncurses too?) are almost completely
non-functional.

Michael Condict			[email-masked]
The Open Group Research Inst.	(617) 621-7349
11 Cambridge Center
Cambridge, MA 02142
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