terminfo

Terminfo and Termcap

Don't use termcap; it's the old system. Use terminfo.

translate tput commands to echo strings

tput-to-str(){ infocmp -E | sed -n -e "/_s_$@/s/^.*\"\(.*\)\";.*/\1/p"; }

You can use it like this:

This version extracts the characters that tput actually writes, but the string quoting format is not standard C or shell ('''echo -n -e''' won't work).
<pre>
tput-to-str(){( strace -s 1000 -e write tput $@ 2>&2 2>&1 ) | grep -o '"[^"]*"';}