[haiku-development] Re: What to do with termcap? Scene II.

  • From: Ingo Weinhold <ingo_weinhold@xxxxxx>
  • To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 20 May 2013 21:51:13 +0200

On 05/20/2013 05:12 PM, Siarzhuk Zharski wrote:
Ingo Weinhold писал 20.05.2013 00:56:
Good that you mention it. I suspect it wasn't correct in the
respective bep file at HaikuPorts yet?

No, I think. The terminfo.src in the Haiku sources trunk is not used at
all at the moment. Currently used source of term entries in Haiku - the
termcap data file that was converted separately from ncurses 5.9
terminfo.src and committed in src/libs/termcap/termcap.src. So some
extra lines in the patch file for ncurses package will be needed to
patch terminfo.src. And some extra commands to build the terminfo
database during preparing the package too.

OK.

Another issue I have found: the 'rf' capability is referenced currently
by absolute paths to tabset data files in /boot/common/data/tabset/
directory. Ncurses makefile uses sed script during installing the
terminfo database to change those references to real path. May this
hard-coding to /boot/common/data/tabset become the problem in the
feature when common data path in Haiku become more flexible?

Built-in absolute paths pose a problem, but that's exactly why we introduced the package links indirection. They provide stable absolute paths that can be built in at compile time. packagefs redirects them to the actual installation location at run-time. E.g. in case of the ncurses package I've built the paths the terminfo entries refer to are /packages/ncurses-5.9-6/.self/data/tabset/... which point to the correct location regardless of where the package is installed.

OK, I probably misunderstood you. I thought updating ncurses to a
newer version and finding another solution for compiling the terminfo
database were prerequisites for switching from termcap to terminfo.

The stock ncurses may be left untouched during this switch, IMO. But
such "upgraded" system have to be equipped with the terminfo database,
and some solution to provide this database will be needed in any case.
Having in mind that in the future the terminfo database will be provided
precompiled as part of ncurses package - we can start install separate
"terminfo-db" optional package until complete outsourcing of the ncurses
lib will be finished and merged. IMO, that let me to solve possible
issues of this switching separately from the work on ncurses. What do
you think about this?

Sounds good.

CU, Ingo


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