To let a program use different terminals without modification, information about the terminal description and access routines are provided under UNIX.
The terminal descriptions are usually stored in the directory "/usr/lib/terminfo", in the following referred to as "terminfo". The access routines are stored in the library "/usr/lib/libcurses.a". The ADABAS tools use the "curses" library for addressing the screen or terminal.
The applicable description in "terminfo" is identified by the environment variable "term". The value of this environment variable enables the "curses" routines to find for the currently used terminal the corresponding description of its properties under "terminfo". The descriptions of different terminal types are grouped in directories according to the first character of the type name, so with the usual type names, the directory "/usr/lib/terminfo/v" would contain the descriptions of "vt100", "vt200" terminals, etc.
Usually, the system will know from the environment variable "terminfo" where these terminal description files can be found. If this environment variable is not set, the terminal description files located under "terminfo" will be used.
As the environment variable "terminfo" is reset, it is possible to have and use various directory trees containing terminal description files on the same computer. The "curses" routines read this environment variable and access the corresponding terminal description.
If a user creates a private description of a terminal type "vt100", setting "terminfo" to "/private/termtest/new", then the "curses" routines access the file "/private/termtest/new/v/vt100".
Detailed information about "curses" and "terminfo" can be found in the respective system manuals.