Is it possible to "force" xterm-256color ?

[lzanoni-stm]

I'm deploying a self-contained single-file app using v1 on various Linux.
In some cases, the TERM variable says xterm, linux or screen although the underlying terminal supports xterm-256color.
I'm looking for a way to 'force' Curses to run as if xterm-256color, without requiring the user to specify TERM=xterm-256 before lauching my app.

Any suggestion ?
I'd like to avoid using a launcher script for that.

[tznind]

I think you can use PInvoke to set the env var e.g.

It seems to work when I tested on WSL but also setting TERM to blank did bad things to WSL itself 😆

We must use interop because Environment.SetEnvironmentVariable doesn't really do the underlying process level change - it seems to be managed dotnet stuff only i.e. the Curses C libraries don't pick up on the env vars properly.

PInvoke can be seen as risky but this is an incredibly standard method in core library - and the curses driver itself is chock full of lib invoke stuff so this would just be tip of iceberg I would say.

using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using Terminal.Gui;

class Program
{
    // Import setenv from libc
    [DllImport("libc", EntryPoint = "setenv", SetLastError = true, CharSet = CharSet.Ansi)]
    private static extern int SetEnv(string name, string value, int overwrite);

    static void Main()
    {
        // Check if we're running on Linux
        if (RuntimeInformation.IsOSPlatform(OSPlatform.Linux))
        {
            string termVariable = "TERM";

            // Check if TERM is blank or unset
            string currentTermValue = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable(termVariable);
            if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(currentTermValue))
            {
                string termValue = "xterm-256color"; // Default TERM value

                // Set TERM environment variable
                int result = SetEnv(termVariable, termValue, 1); // 1 = overwrite existing
                if (result != 0)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine($"Failed to set {termVariable} environment variable.");
                    return;
                }

                Console.WriteLine($"Set {termVariable} to {termValue}.");
            }
            else
            {
                Console.WriteLine($"{termVariable} is already set to {currentTermValue}.");
            }
        }

        // Press a key so you get a chance to read what above step said
        Console.ReadKey();

        // Initialize Terminal.Gui
        Application.Init();
        var top = Application.Top;

        // Create a simple UI
        var win = new Window("Hello Terminal.Gui")
        {
            X = 0,
            Y = 0,
            Width = Dim.Fill(),
            Height = Dim.Fill()
        };
        top.Add(win);

        var label = new Label("This is a Terminal.Gui application with TERM environment variable checked!")
        {
            X = Pos.Center(),
            Y = Pos.Center()
        };
        win.Add(label);

        Application.Run();

        Application.Shutdown();
    }
}