Sets your $TERM to 256color if the termcap entry exists. Particularly useful for gnome-terminal, which has no option to set $TERM.

bashrc_256color.sh

case "$TERM" in
*-256color)
    alias ssh='TERM=${TERM%-256color} ssh'
    ;;
*)
    POTENTIAL_TERM=$TERM-256color
    POTENTIAL_TERMINFO=${TERM:0:1}/$POTENTIAL_TERM

    BOX_TERMINFO_DIR=/usr/share/terminfo
    [[ -f $BOX_TERMINFO_DIR/$POTENTIAL_TERMINFO ]] && export TERM=$POTENTIAL_TERM

    HOME_TERMINFO_DIR=$HOME/.terminfo
    [[ -f $HOME_TERMINFO_DIR/$POTENTIAL_TERMINFO ]] && export TERM=$POTENTIAL_TERM
    ;;
esac