Sans ncurses

[Rick Stevens]

Karl Pearson wrote:
> Sorry for the off-topic query:
> 
> Is there a means of formatting a telnet/ssh/xterm 'window' so a looping
> shell script could update information without repainting the entire screen
> on each pass? (printf, echo...)
> 
> I have a program written in a text-based application which I would like to
> make much faster by running at the OS level using shell (ksh) scripts.
> 
> I have found that sending ESC-c I can clear the screen. I've tried a few
> others and found other things, too, but haven't written anything down.
> I'll get to it but hope someone has experience with this and can point me
> in the right direction.

Take a look at the termcap or terminfo entry for your terminal type.
Do an "echo $TERM" to find out which kind of terminal you're emulating
(odds are it's "xterm"), then edit /etc/termcap and look for the
entry that matches (for xterms, the primary entry is "xterm-xfree86").
The stuff in that entry show what escape sequences do what (do "man
termcap" for a list of what the entries mean).

For the most part, xterm is a DEC VT220 with ANSI extensions for
handling colors and such (the VT220 was monochrome).

I hope that helps.
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-    I don't suffer from insanity...I enjoy every minute of it!      -
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