Mary, this is exactly what I needed -- good to go now; thank you! As a side note: Man, what an intimidating can of braindamage I've opened!:) thanks all! jake P.S. if anyone's bored enough, you can check out what we're up to at https://github.com/srphtygr/dhb. I'm trying to get my 11yo kid to spend a little time programming rather than just playing video games when he's near a computer. He'a actually getting through this stuff and is honestly interested when he understands it and sees it work -- and he even spotted a bug before me this afternoon! Feel free to raise issues, pull requests, etc. if you like -- I'm putting him through the git committing and pair programming paces, so outside interaction would be kinda fun:) P.P.S. We're actually using 2.11bsd after all.. On Tue, Dec 30, 2014 at 9:33 PM, Mary Ann Horton<mah(a)mhorton.net> wrote: > >This is the right info. Be sure to scroll up to see how to use tgetent, > >tgetstr, and tputs. You aren't likely to need any padding. > > > >Essentially: > > tgetent using getenv("TERM") gets you the whole entry from > >/etc/termcap > > tgetstr of "cl" gets you the "clear" > >sequence > > tputs outputs the "clear" > >sequence > > > > > >On 12/30/2014 06:22 PM, Dan Stromberg wrote: > > >> >>Check outhttps://www.gnu.org/software/termutils/manual/termcap-1.3/ >> >>html_mono/termcap.html#SEC30 >> >>- especially the "cl" entry. >> >> >> >>ISTR the database being at /etc/termcap normally.