the curses library (see man curses(3))
does exactly what you want.  
-Brian
On Mar 26,  5:12am, Andrew Steven Ball wrote:
} Subject: Writing terminal-independent software.
} 
} Hello!
} 
} I'm thinking of writing a QWK off-line reader, and building
} it under NetBSD/i386. I would like to write it in such a way
} that it would work on various terminal types, including
} things like wscons, xterm etc.
} 
} I remember reading years ago about termcap, which I think
} may have been superceded by terminfo.  If I'm writing in C,
} is there a library I can use that will do all the donkey-
} work of digging up the appropriate escape sequences for the
} terminal in use?  My needs are pretty minimal, clearing the
} screen, positioning the cursor and so on.
} 
} I realise there may already be QWK software for NetBSD, I
} haven't looked yet.  I would be interested in the answer to
} this question anyway.
} 
} Regards,
}   - Andy.
>-- End of excerpt from Andrew Steven Ball