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0 pointsaugusto-moura4y ago0 comments

You don't need terminfo until you need to redirect those fancy outputs to a file, or you see a lot of weird [M; in your CI logs, or your ssh session does not display full 256 colors, or you question why we don't have true images in our terminals when we have bitmap escape codes for decades now[1]. No terminal was created equal and never will. terminfo is about future as it is about the past.

Color ansi codes might be everywhere today, but that's no reason to disgrace terminfo, there are a ton of other features that need checking and are not universal.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixel

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JoshTriplett4y ago

> until you need to redirect those fancy outputs to a file, or you see a lot of weird [M; in your CI logs

The application should be checking isatty by default, unless the user overrides that.

> or your ssh session does not display full 256 colors

I've most often seen this kind of thing because the remote end doesn't have the right terminfo entries for the local terminal.

> or you question why we don't have true images in our terminals when we have bitmap escape codes for decades now

Sixel, specifically, doesn't seem to have much support other than in xterm itself (as opposed to otherwise-xterm-compatible terminals). And other bitmap extensions are something that many terminals support autodiscovery for.

> No terminal was created equal and never will. terminfo is about future as it is about the past.

Part of the problem is that terminfo doesn't have much info about the future, as opposed to the past.

For going beyond terminfo, I think autodiscovery protocols would be a better future path.

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