Um, as has been stated multiple time, this is why tputs(1) exists. Problem. Solved. On Thu, Nov 26, 2020 at 01:26:30PM -0500, Nemo Nusquam wrote: -- --- Larry McVoy lm at mcvoy.com http://www.mcvoy.com/lm

Did I miss a reason for the alternative? Because if you add a caching layer this approach has been working for me for decades. I rewrote dired in perl just because perl was everywhere and I could. I've been dragging the perl one around since at least 1990 and it worked for me on pretty much any version of Unix. I think MacOS isn't supported but I'm sure it could be. To avoid calling tput over and over again, I cached the output for each terminal and then just evaled the cache which sets a bunch of variables to the escapes I needed. It performed just fine on 20mhz SPARCstations so I'm sort of wondering why the solution for the problem isn't good enough. # Dig out all the terminal info so we know the escape chars for this terminal. sub terminal_init { local($term) = "$ENV{'HOME'}/.term/$ENV{'TERM'}"; local($i) = 0; $| = 1; @pids = (); $SIG{TERM} = sub { exit(0); }; $SIG{PIPE} = 'IGNORE'; # RedHat 5.0 seems to get this wrong somehow. #chop($tc_rows = `tput lines`); #chop($tc_cols = `tput cols`); open(STTY, "stty -a|"); while (defined($_ = <STTY>)) { last if /rows = \d/ || /\d rows/ || /rows \d/; } close(STTY); #speed 9600 baud; rows 58; columns 80; line = 0; #speed 9600 baud; 47 rows; 80 columns; #rows = 66; columns = 80 $tc_cols = 0; if (/rows (\d+); columns (\d+);/) { $tc_rows = $1; $tc_cols = $2; } elsif (/(\d+) rows; (\d+) columns;/) { $tc_rows = $1; $tc_cols = $2; } elsif (/rows = (\d+); columns = (\d+)/) { $tc_rows = $1; $tc_cols = $2; } if ($tc_cols == 0) { die "Can't get terminal settings.\n"; } $half_of_screen = int($tc_rows / 2); # it's cached, go grab it. if (-f $term) { open(T, $term); @t = <T>; close(T); eval "@t"; &ttyraw; return unless $i < $tc_rows; } print "Getting terminal info just this once and saving it..."; mkdir("$ENV{'HOME'}/.term", 0755); open(T, ">$term"); $tc_smcup = `tput smcup`; $tc_rmcup = `tput rmcup`; $tc_bold = `tput bold`; $tc_normal = `tput sgr0`; $tc_clear = `tput clear`; $tc_clreos = `tput ed`; $tc_clreol = `tput el`; if ($tc_cols < 60) { die "$0: needs 60 columns"; } if (length($tc_clreos) == 0) { die "$0: needs clear to end of screen"; } if (length($tc_clreol) == 0) { die "$0: needs clear to end of line"; } print T "\$tc_smcup = \"$tc_smcup\";\n"; print T "\$tc_rmcup = \"$tc_rmcup\";\n"; print T "\$tc_bold = \"$tc_bold\";\n"; print T "\$tc_normal = \"$tc_normal\";\n"; print T "\$tc_clear = \"$tc_clear\";\n"; print T "\$tc_clreol = \"$tc_clreol\";\n"; print T "\$tc_clreos = \"$tc_clreos\";\n"; for ($i = 0; $i < $tc_rows; ++$i) { $left[$i] = `tput cup $i 0`; print T '$left[' . "$i] = \"" . $left[$i] . "\";\n"; if ($i < $half_of_screen) { $middle[$i] = `tput cup $i 44`; print T '$middle[' . "$i] = \"" . $middle[$i] . "\";\n"; } } print T '$i = ' . "$i;\n"; close(T); print "done\n"; &ttyraw; }

You had me at "a bit heavy handed." -- ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ -- Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com -- LOAD"STANDARD DISCLAIMER",8,1 ----------------------------------------------