/etc/terminfo/README neglects to mention $HOME/.terminfo

[Ralph Corderoy]

Ubuntu 9.04, ncurses-base 5.7+20090207-1ubuntu1.

/etc/terminfo/README says "This directory is for system-local terminfo descriptions. By default, ncurses will search this directory first, then /lib/terminfo, then /usr/share/terminfo." It's incorrect. It's quite clear from strace that $HOME/.terminfo is searched first, and then the sequence described by README. In misleading the user, it makes them thinks they need system privileges to modify /etc/terminfo and set up their own terminal definition, they don't. A $HOME/.terminfo/x/xterm works just fine.

    $ TERM=nonexist strace sl 2>&1 | grep nonexist
    access("/home/ralph/.terminfo/n/nonexist", R_OK) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
    access("/etc/terminfo/n/nonexist", R_OK) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
    access("/lib/terminfo/n/nonexist", R_OK) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
    access("/usr/share/terminfo/n/nonexist", R_OK) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
    write(2, "Error opening terminal: nonexist"..., 34Error opening terminal: nonexist.
    $

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package ncurses - 5.9-4

---------------
ncurses (5.9-4) unstable; urgency=low

  * Create debian/libtermcap.so at build time rather than trying to ship
    it, since dpkg-source does not like to do the latter (Closes: #647253).

ncurses (5.9-3) unstable; urgency=low

  * Move the libtermcap symlinks to lib{32,}tinfo-dev (Closes: #644426).
    - Symlink libtinfo.a to libtermcap.a.
    - Use a linker script for libtermcap.so to work around ldconfig
      bug #249122.
  * Move the libtic libraries from lib*ncurses5 to lib*tinfo5
    (Closes: #644933) and their development files from lib*ncurses5-dev
    to lib*tinfo-dev.
  * Drop libticw from libncursesw5 and configure with "--with-ticlib=tic"
    to share the same tic library between libncurses5 and libncursesw5.
  * Don't mark libncurses5-dev and libncursesw5-dev as "Multi-Arch: same"
    for now (Closes: #646761).
  * Link the example programs against ncursesw rather than ncurses.
  * Add Breaks against binutils-gold (<< 2.21.53.20110910) to
    libncurses5-dev and libncursesw5-dev (see #644708).
  * Mention in /etc/terminfo/README that ${HOME}/.terminfo is the first
    directory where ncurses looks for terminfo files (LP: #384285).
  * Obtain CPPFLAGS from dpkg-buildflags.
  * Drop the lintian overrides introduced in 5.9-2.
 -- Ubuntu Archive Auto-Sync <email address hidden> Fri, 18 Nov 2011 10:53:02 +0000