Re: [Monotone-devel] Re: colored diffs [Was: [PATCH] parent selector 'p:xxx']

[Zack Weinberg]

On 10/8/07, Ethan Blanton <address@hidden> wrote:
> > It's a good idea but you need to be careful how you implement it.
> > Hardwiring VT220 color control codes would be bad.  So would making us
> > depend on ncurses.
>
> ncurses is far less odious than boost -- most systems actually *have*
> ncurses, and it doesn't kick compilation times into the stratosphere,
> either.  ;-)

Well, probably it wouldn't be much trouble, but I must point out that
GNU ls manages to have optional colorized output without depending on
ncurses (however, I have no idea how that feature works).

> > I'd suggest a set of Lua hooks that know the necessary escape
> > sequences for the most common TERM= settings (xterm, etc) and can
> > query the 'tput' utility for less common ones.  You could also use
> > this to get at the line-drawing characters for
> > asciik...
>
> Down this path lies madness.  You're reinventing terminfo.

Not so - it's just a more arms-length version of the code we would
write if we used ncurses directly.

zw