GNU termcap enables programs to use display terminals in a terminal-independent way. It's a project that enables the terminal-independent utilization of display terminals by programs.
This package is mostly distributed with GNU Emacs, but it can also be obtained as a separate distribution, making it easier to install as -ltermcap. However, it is worth noting that the use of termcap is discouraged by the developers.
The preferred alternative is the terminfo-based ncurses library, which not only contains an emulation of the termcap library routines but also boasts an excellent curses implementation. Ncurses is available from the usual GNU archive sites.
This package contains termcap.src, which is the latest official termcap data file. By default, this file is not installed. The current version of this file contains entries that exceed 1023 bytes in length, which is the largest value that is safe to use with many historical applications that only allocate a 1024 byte termcap buffer (such as telnet).
If you want to install the new termcap file, it is safe to do so as long as you ensure that all of your programs allocate buffers of at least 2500 bytes. Alternatively, you can let the termcap library do it for you by passing a NULL pointer. To install the termcap data file, you can give configure two special options: --enable-install-termcap to install the data file, and --with-termcap=FILE to use a specific data file instead of /etc/termcap.
This release of GNU termcap includes an updated termcap data file, as well as some bug fixes and portability changes.
Version 1.3.1: N/A