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ncurses terminfo has some issues #248
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on Mar 28, 2020 Both issues fixed in NetBSD@4a21729 and NetBSD@e8a4d5a.
For now I'm going to hold off on maintaining our own copy of
terminfo.srcas it's not without risk (it's likely we'd maintain it as a patch against upstream pkgsrc which would be inherently vulnerable to bit-rot), but if we see regressions again then we'll strongly consider it.A fixed
ncurses-6.2nb2package will be available in the next trunk build, as well as our 2020Q1 release.Thanks!
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There are a couple of issues with the
terminfo.srcin the current ncurses source.First, the unfortunate reality is that lots of people use
xtermandxterm-256colorfor terminals other than a strictly compliantxterm. The current database appears to include arepcapability, but many terminals don't implement this correctly. The graphical corruption is pretty obvious if you use something likencduwhich will make use of the repeating functionality, in a terminal likeurxvt.Ditching the
repcapability from thextermdefinition causes ncurses to fall back to something slightly less efficient, but widely supported: drawing the character multiple times. This seems a low risk, high value patch we could carry.Second,
tmuxencourages users to useTERM=screenorscreen-256color. A change was made just prior to the 6.2 release, it seems, that causes the oldscreendefinition to be ditched in favour of one that inherits theecma+indexbase:This definition includes a
rincapability that flat out doesn't work withtmux:(i.e.,
CSI n Tdoes nothing)In a subsequent version, this was apparently corrected:
Unfortunately I think we only get a new
terminfo.srcwhen we get a new ncurses release. I think it'd be a good idea forpkgsrcto contain a wholesale copy ofterminfo.srcwhich can be somewhat detached form the ncurses update process. We could also carry local modifications on the file. This is, I believe, what most distributions end up having to do, to manage the churn which is at times unhelpful.What do you think?