Re: 1.7.1 release date? (termcap)

[Thomas Wolff <towo at towo dot net>]

Corinna Vinschen schrieb:
> > We should consider termcap dead at this point.  I don't even have a
> > /etc/termcap on my most recent Ubuntu and gentoo systems and I obviously
> > haven't missed it.
> >
> > ...
> tcsh uses termcap as well, unfortunately.  The reason is the existence
> of libtermcap.a.  tcsh checks for the termcap functions in this order:
>
> libc -> libtermcap -> libcurses -> libncurses.
>   
On some systems, libtermcap is now actually a gateway to the terminfo 
database, maybe even using libncurses.
If this is not the case on cygwin, my previous comment applies: as long 
as it exists, it needs to work properly.

> I tried to argue with the upstream maintainers to prefer the more
> modern library, but they argue for the least footprint solution.
>   
And it's legitimate for them to make the assumption I tried to suggest 
above.
> However, if we drop the libtermcap.a file from the distro, the next
> tcsh will automatically use ncurses.
>   
Dropping libtermcap *and* /etc/termcap is a proper solution (although 
not nice for the manual lookup use case...).

> So, I'm all for getting rid of the termcap package and only keep
> some sort of /etc/termcap file...
>   
In this case, my other comment (from other mail) applies: keep it 
up-to-date or delete it. Wasn't there a tool in the xterm (or ncurses) 
package to generated /etc/termcap automatically from the terminfo database?

> > So, I wouldn't mind if it was either removed or subsumed by ncurses
> > since every linux distro that I know of which still has it seems to
> > generate it from infotocap.
> >     
> ...preferredly generated from the info files.
>   
I should read mails completely before I start to reply to them...

Thomas