For most UNIX variants, the keys supported by "terminfo" and "curses" are not sufficient for a (convenient) use of the ADABAS tools.
One way of detecting which keys are not supported is to define these keys using "x_maketi", to compile the result by means of "tic", and then to call "x_maketi" again. If a key is not supported, "tic" does not transform its definition to a binary format, so it will be lost on the second call of "x_maketi" (the name is not underlined any more, the value is empty).
To exceed this limitation, the tools of ADABAS support the concept of a key definition file separate from "terminfo". These files are located in the directory "$dbroot/terminfo/term" (without the separation for the first character of the type name!), the file name is the terminal type with the addition of ".hif".
"x_maketi" will create such a "hif" file if it is given the '-h' option. The use of "x_maketi" remains as described above with the following change: as these "hif" files are used in the form they are created by "x_maketi", there is no call of "tic".
Whether the environment variable DBHIF has to be set to the filename (without the extension ".hif"), depends on the name of the description file and on the environment variable DBTERM or TERM: if the environment variables DBHIF and DBTERM or DBHIF and TERM have the same contents DBHIF need not be set. The keyboard description file will then automatically be found. If their contents are different the environment variable DBHIF has to be set (see Section General Recommendations).
If there is a keyboard description file it only overrides the keyboard layouts of the files "$dbterm" or "$term". All the other features of the terminal are still read from the description file "$dbterm" or "$term".