Updated: 2022/Sep/29

Please read Privacy Policy. It's for your privacy.


TERMCAP(3)                 Library Functions Manual                 TERMCAP(3)

NAME
     tgetent, tgetnum, tgetflag, tgetstr, tgoto - terminal independent
     operation routines

LIBRARY
     Termcap Access Library (libtermcap, -ltermcap)

SYNOPSIS
     #include <termcap.h>

     char PC;
     char *BC;
     char *UP;

     int
     tgetent(char *bp, const char *name);

     int
     tgetnum(const char *id);

     int
     tgetflag(const char *id);

     char *
     tgetstr(const char *id, char **area);

     char *
     tgoto(const char *cm, int destcol, int destline);

DESCRIPTION
     These functions extract and use capabilities from a terminal capability
     database.  They exist as wrappers around equivalent terminfo(3)
     functions, which new code should use.  These are low level routines; see
     curses(3) for a higher level package.

     The tgetent() function calls setupterm() and configures PC, UP and BC.
     Only PC is actually used internally.  The tgetent() function returns -1
     if none of the terminfo data base files could be opened, 0 if the
     terminal name given does not match an entry, and 1 if all goes well.  The
     bp argument is not used.

     The tgetnum() function gets the numeric value of the capability id,
     returning -1 if it is not given for the terminal.  The tgetflag()
     function returns 1 if the specified capability is present in the
     terminal's entry, 0 if it is not.  The tgetstr() function returns the
     string value of the capability id.  This is a terminfo(5) string and not
     a termcap string; as such it should only be processed by tgoto().  The
     tgetstr() function returns NULL if the capability was not found.  The
     area argument is unused.

     The tgoto() function returns a cursor addressing string decoded from cm
     to go to column destcol in line destline, or NULL on error conditions
     such as out of memory.  Please note that tgoto() can return an incomplete
     value on a malformed input sequence.  Historically tgoto() used to return
     "OOPS" on those conditions, so newer programs should now be checking the
     return value.

SEE ALSO
     terminfo(3), terminfo(5)

HISTORY
     termcap first appeared in 4.0BSD.  NetBSD 1.5 introduced some termcap
     t_*() extensions which were removed in NetBSD 6.0 when terminfo(3) was
     introduced.

AUTHORS
     Roy Marples <roy@NetBSD.org>

NetBSD 10.99                    March 14, 2011                    NetBSD 10.99