On 2022-02-03 11:10 +0100, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> Package: ncurses-bin
> Version: 6.3-2
> Severity: minor
>
> In the infocmp(1) man page:
>
> Changing Databases [-A directory] [-B directory]
> Like other ncurses utilities, infocmp looks for the terminal
> descriptions in several places. You can use the TERMINFO and
> TERMINFO_DIRS environment variables to override the compiled-in
> default list of places to search (see curses(3X) for details).
>
> The curses(3X) man page does not exist. It is curses(3ncurses).
This particular problem has been fixed in version 6.3+20220423-1,
probably as a consequence of the following change in the 20211225
patchlevel:
,----
| + improve markup, e.g., for external manpage links in the manpages
| (prompted by report by Helge Kreutzmann).
`----
As of version 6.4+20240113-1 there are no longer any '3X' references in
any of the manpages, and I have also added an autopkgtest to ensure that
they do not come back.
> Moreover,
>
> FILES
> /etc/terminfo Compiled terminal description database.
>
> It is empty in my case. It appears that infocmp looks at other places,
> such as /lib/terminfo (most cases) and "$HOME/.terminfo".
Yes. There are several places in the manpages where /etc/terminfo is
referred to as the system terminfo database, but it is really just the
place where tic(1) writes to by default, whereas the terminfo entries
provided by the distribution usually live under /usr/share/terminfo.
Someone™ should improve that, because it basically affects every Linux
distro out there.
> Instead of giving a directory that is not used in practice, give a
> reference to the curses(3ncurses) man page?
That would probably not be too helpful, because that manpage is likely
not present. The "Fetching Compiled Descriptions" section in
terminfo(5) is probably the most accurate reference.
Cheers,
Sven
