<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN"> <!--Converted with LaTeX2HTML 96.1-c (Feb 29, 1996) by Nikos Drakos (nikos@cbl.leeds.ac.uk), CBLU, University of Leeds --> <HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE>8.2.2 Find a Terminal Description</TITLE> <META NAME="description" CONTENT="8.2.2 Find a Terminal Description"> <META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="lpg"> <META NAME="resource-type" CONTENT="document"> <META NAME="distribution" CONTENT="global"> <LINK REL=STYLESHEET HREF="lpg.css"> </HEAD> <BODY LANG="EN"> <A NAME="tex2html1532" HREF="node92.html"><IMG WIDTH=37 HEIGHT=24 ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="next" SRC="/icons//next_motif.gif"></A> <A NAME="tex2html1530" HREF="node89.html"><IMG WIDTH=26 HEIGHT=24 ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="up" SRC="/icons//up_motif.gif"></A> <A NAME="tex2html1524" HREF="node90.html"><IMG WIDTH=63 HEIGHT=24 ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="previous" SRC="/icons//previous_motif.gif"></A> <A NAME="tex2html1534" HREF="node1.html"><IMG WIDTH=65 HEIGHT=24 ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="contents" SRC="/icons//contents_motif.gif"></A> <BR> <B> Next:</B> <A NAME="tex2html1533" HREF="node92.html">8.2.3 Look at a </A> <B>Up:</B> <A NAME="tex2html1531" HREF="node89.html">8.2 The Termcap Library</A> <B> Previous:</B> <A NAME="tex2html1525" HREF="node90.html">8.2.1 Introduction</A> <BR> <P> <H2><A NAME="SECTION00922000000000000000">8.2.2 Find a Terminal Description</A></H2> <P> <UL><LI> <TT>int tgetent(void *buffer, const char *termtype)</TT> <A NAME="fun_tgetent"> </A><BR> On the Linux operating system the current terminal name is contained in the environment variable . So, <TT>termtype</TT> is the result of a call to (3). <P> For <TT>buffer</TT>, no memory has to be allocated when using the GNU version of termcap. This is what we can assume under Linux! Otherwise, you'll have to allocate 2048 Bytes. (Formerly, <TT>buffer</TT> only needed to be 1024 Bytes, but the size has doubled). <P> <B>tgetent(...)</B> returns 1 on success and 0 when the database is found but has no entry for TERM. Other errors will return different values. <P> The following example should explain how to use <B>tgetent(...)</B>: <P> <P><P> <P> By, default termcap uses <I>/etc/termcap/</I> as the database. If the environment variable TERMCAP is set, with <I>$HOME/mytermcap</I> for instance, all functions will use instead of <I>/etc/termcap</I>. With no leading slash in TERMCAP, the defined value is used as a name for a terminal. </UL><BR> <HR> <P><ADDRESS> <I>Converted on: <BR> Fri Mar 29 14:43:04 EST 1996</I> </ADDRESS> </BODY> </HTML>