[comp.terminals] Termcap, terminfo question

edward@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Edward Wang) (04/18/89)

Is the termcap string "rp" (and equivalent in terminfo)
supposed to work across line boundaries?  I mean if a terminal
can repeat a character but only to the end of the line,
then is it okay to call that rp?  The only program I know
of that uses it is emacs, and it never repeats across lines.
Also, is it okay to assume only printing characters are repeated?

					Edward

gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (04/18/89)

In article <28825@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> edward@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Edward Wang) writes:
>Is the termcap string "rp" (and equivalent in terminfo)
>supposed to work across line boundaries?  I mean if a terminal
>can repeat a character but only to the end of the line,
>then is it okay to call that rp?  The only program I know
>of that uses it is emacs, and it never repeats across lines.
>Also, is it okay to assume only printing characters are repeated?

"rp" ("rep" in terminfo lingo) is not constrained like that, but
since in practice any implementation in a terminal will have some
limit, it would be wise not to try to span multiple lines with a
repeat in a termcap/terminfo-using application.  Similarly, a
sane application should avoid using rp/rep for a sequence of
control characters, simply because it's asking for trouble, not
because it isn't part of the definition of the capability.

The general rule when preparing terminal descriptions is "When in
doubt, leave it out".