.\" Copyright (c) 1980 Regents of the University of California.
.\" All rights reserved. The Berkeley software License Agreement
.\" specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution.
.\" @(#)termcap.3 6.2 (Berkeley) %G%
tgetent, tgetnum, tgetflag, tgetstr, tgoto, tputs \- terminal independent operation routines
.B tgoto(cm, destcol, destline)
.B tputs(cp, affcnt, outc)
These functions extract and use capabilities from a terminal capability data
base, usually /etc/termcap, the format of which is described in
These are low level routines;
for a higher level package.
extracts the entry for terminal
should be a character buffer of size
1024 and must be retained through all subsequent calls to
returns \-1 if none of the termcap
data base files could be opened,
0 if the terminal name given does not have an entry,
It will look in the environment for a TERMCAP variable.
If found, and the value does not begin with a slash,
is the same as the environment string TERM,
the TERMCAP string is used instead of reading a termcap file.
If it does begin with a slash, the string is used as a path name
of the termcap file to search.
If TERMCAP does not begin with a slash and
searches the files $HOME/.termcap and /etc/termcap,
in that order, unless the environment variable TERMPATH exists,
in which case it specifies a list of file pathnames
(separated by spaces or colons) to be searched instead.
Whenever multiple files are searched and a
field occurs in the requested entry, the entry it names must be found
in the same file or one of the succeeding files.
This can speed up entry into programs that call
as well as help debug new terminal descriptions
or make one for your terminal if you can't write the file /etc/termcap.
gets the numeric value of capability
returning \-1 if is not given for the terminal.
returns 1 if the specified capability is present in
the terminal's entry, 0 if it is not.
returns the string value of the capability
places it in the buffer at
It decodes the abbreviations for this field described in
except for cursor addressing and padding information.
returns NULL if the capability was not found.
returns a cursor addressing string decoded from
It uses the external variables
(from the \fBup\fR capability)
(if \fBbc\fR is given rather than \fBbs\fR)
if necessary to avoid placing \fB\en\fR, \fB^D\fR or \fB^@\fR in
(Programs which call tgoto should be sure to turn off the XTABS bit(s),
Note that programs using termcap should in general turn off XTABS
anyway since some terminals use control-I for other functions,
such as nondestructive space.)
If a \fB%\fR sequence is given which is not understood, then
decodes the leading padding information of the string
gives the number of lines affected by the operation, or 1 if this is
is a routine which is called with each character in turn.
should contain the output speed of the terminal as encoded by
should contain a pad character to be used (from the \fBpc\fR capability)
if a null (\fB^@\fR) is inappropriate.
.ta \w'/usr/lib/libtermcap.a 'u
/usr/lib/libtermcap.a \-ltermcap library (also known as \-ltermlib)
/etc/termcap standard terminal capability data base
$HOME/.termcap user's terminal capability data base
ex(1), curses(3X), termcap(5)