How does the man program manage to restore previous terminal output after taking over the entire screen? Does it involve ANSI escape sequences in a way?
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you can always get the source for `man` and see what it's doing... – Marc B Jul 28 '15 at 20:06
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That is the ubiquitous xterm alternate-screen feature, which most terminal programs use via the terminfo smcup and rmcup sequences. For recent comments on this feature:
- How to Not Overwrite Previous Terminal Contents
- What mechanism allows ViM to temporarily overwrite the entire console?
(By the way, the man program is usually a "termcap" program).
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Thomas Dickey
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Heh. I use a custom terminfo entry with empty `smcup`/`rmcup` fields just so I can stop programs from switching to an alternate screen. I hate it when I quit, say, `less` and the whole text I was looking at is just gone. – melpomene Jul 28 '15 at 21:25