Re: tn5250 Questions . . .

On Tue, 6 Feb 2001, Jasper O'Malley wrote:

> On Sun, 28 Jan 2001, Scott Klement wrote:
> 
> > 1) Load 5250.terminfo into your terminal database.  "tic 5250.terminfo" 
> >       should do this for you.
> > 2) Make the 5250 definition be the active definition for your particular
> >       session by setting the TERM enviornment variable to be "5250".  
> >       It might be advisable to put this in a script that runs
> >       when you start tn5250, so you don't have to type it each time.
> 
> I have a logical problem with doing this, though. It seems backwards. The
> terminfo and termcap databases are supposed to be used to tell the
> operating system what kind of terminal you're actually using (whether it's
> an emulated VT220, or the console on a Linux box). Since you're not
> on a 5250 terminal when you're running tn5250, it doesn't really make
> sense to tell the operating system that you are. At best, it's a hack,
> even if it is a very good hack. tn5250 is designed to translate 5250
> display data to ncurses display, and ncurses translates it into display
> data appropriate to your local terminal (or local terminal emulator). It
> makes sense that the opposite sequence should be used for input data
> (local terminal -> ncurses -> 5250).

I agree, but unfortunately the termcap/terminfo entries for the Linux 
console don't have all of the necessary function key definitions -- the
Linux console only defines the behavior of F1-F20.  When F21-F24 is sent,
the standard terminfo entry doesnt recognize them -- thus it had to be
modified.

Similarly, on the FreeBSD console (I dont know about Linux) F14 was
sending \E[Z which is also what Backtab was sending -- in order to
differentiate between them, we needed to both change what sequence
the terminal sends to the server AND change the termcap entry...

I agree that the connecting terminal isn't a 5250, so the termcap
entry probably shouldn't be called that.   Maybe we should call it
"madore" or something. :)

I think we'd all be happier with a different way of doing this, but
I don't know of any -- aside from the GTK method that Jay was working on,
that is.


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