# 5.3. Broken Termcap and Terminfo Databases

Please be aware of the fact that most applications (those using ncurses) base their knowledge on how to talk to a terminal emulation on the information within a database. This might well be wrong. Again, you should experience likely problems then with other emulations.

So, for example:

- debian 1.3.1 (Bo) omits the kdch1 entry, thus the DELETE key does appear not to work properly. Other keys might be missing as well.

- the mc 4.1.21 distribution contains a xterm.ti with faulty hpa, vpa entries (with `[` omitted after `ESC`). Even stranger, xterm runs happily with them, because of a feature, that allows to accept errorness sequences under some circumstances (`ESC Pn C` is treated like `ESC [ Pn C`, where `C` is a non-digit.).

- I've included a xterm.ti for this reason. (Compile using tic.)