Terminfo Database and Terminal Devices

Interactive COBOL applications rely heavily on sophisticated use of the terminal device for full-screen input and output, using the ACCEPT and DISPLAY statements. UNIX allows virtually any type of terminal device to be connected and provides the terminfo database as a means for handling the diversity of terminals. This chapter describes how the terminfo database is used by your COBOL system and what details need to be included in the database to enable COBOL to use particular terminal features. This section also describes the Micro Focus terminfo utilities mftic and mfinfocmp.

See Device Handling in your Program Development Guide discusses devices in general including terminal devices. This chapter describes the detailed use and configuration of terminal devices for UNIX.