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29 * @Id: tic.1m,v 1.69 2019/05/18 22:48:40 tom Exp @
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41 <H1 class="no-header">tic 1m</H1>
43 <STRONG><A HREF="tic.1m.html">tic(1m)</A></STRONG> <STRONG><A HREF="tic.1m.html">tic(1m)</A></STRONG>
48 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-NAME">NAME</a></H2><PRE>
49 <STRONG>tic</STRONG> - the <EM>terminfo</EM> entry-description compiler
52 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a></H2><PRE>
53 <STRONG>tic</STRONG> [<STRONG>-01CDGIKLNTUVWacfgqrstx</STRONG>] [<STRONG>-e</STRONG> <EM>names</EM>] [<STRONG>-o</STRONG> <EM>dir</EM>] [<STRONG>-Q</STRONG>[<EM>n</EM>]] [<STRONG>-R</STRONG> <EM>subset</EM>]
54 [<STRONG>-v</STRONG>[<EM>n</EM>]] [<STRONG>-w</STRONG>[<EM>n</EM>]] <EM>file</EM>
57 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a></H2><PRE>
58 The <STRONG>tic</STRONG> command translates a <STRONG>terminfo</STRONG> file from source format into com-
59 piled format. The compiled format is necessary for use with the
60 library routines in <STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">ncurses(3x)</A></STRONG>.
62 As described in <STRONG><A HREF="term.5.html">term(5)</A></STRONG>, the database may be either a directory tree
63 (one file per terminal entry) or a hashed database (one record per
64 entry). The <STRONG>tic</STRONG> command writes only one type of entry, depending on
67 <STRONG>o</STRONG> For directory trees, the top-level directory, e.g., /usr/share/ter-
68 minfo, specifies the location of the database.
70 <STRONG>o</STRONG> For hashed databases, a filename is needed. If the given file is
71 not found by that name, but can be found by adding the suffix
72 ".db", then that is used.
74 The default name for the hashed database is the same as the default
75 directory name (only adding a ".db" suffix).
77 In either case (directory or hashed database), <STRONG>tic</STRONG> will create the con-
78 tainer if it does not exist. For a directory, this would be the "ter-
79 minfo" leaf, versus a "terminfo.db" file.
81 The results are normally placed in the system terminfo database
82 <STRONG>/usr/share/terminfo</STRONG>. The compiled terminal description can be placed
83 in a different terminfo database. There are two ways to achieve this:
85 <STRONG>o</STRONG> First, you may override the system default either by using the <STRONG>-o</STRONG>
86 option, or by setting the variable <STRONG>TERMINFO</STRONG> in your shell environ-
87 ment to a valid database location.
89 <STRONG>o</STRONG> Secondly, if <STRONG>tic</STRONG> cannot write in <EM>/usr/share/terminfo</EM> or the loca-
90 tion specified using your TERMINFO variable, it looks for the
91 directory <EM>$HOME/.terminfo</EM> (or hashed database <EM>$HOME/.terminfo.db)</EM>;
92 if that location exists, the entry is placed there.
94 Libraries that read terminfo entries are expected to check in succes-
97 <STRONG>o</STRONG> a location specified with the TERMINFO environment variable,
99 <STRONG>o</STRONG> <EM>$HOME/.terminfo</EM>,
101 <STRONG>o</STRONG> directories listed in the TERMINFO_DIRS environment variable,
103 <STRONG>o</STRONG> a compiled-in list of directories (/usr/local/ncurses/share/ter-
104 minfo:/usr/share/terminfo), and
106 <STRONG>o</STRONG> the system terminfo database (<EM>/usr/share/terminfo</EM>).
109 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-OPTIONS">OPTIONS</a></H3><PRE>
110 <STRONG>-0</STRONG> restricts the output to a single line
112 <STRONG>-1</STRONG> restricts the output to a single column
114 <STRONG>-a</STRONG> tells <STRONG>tic</STRONG> to retain commented-out capabilities rather than dis-
115 carding them. Capabilities are commented by prefixing them with
116 a period. This sets the <STRONG>-x</STRONG> option, because it treats the com-
117 mented-out entries as user-defined names. If the source is
118 termcap, accept the 2-character names required by version 6.
119 Otherwise these are ignored.
121 <STRONG>-C</STRONG> Force source translation to termcap format. Note: this differs
122 from the <STRONG>-C</STRONG> option of <STRONG><A HREF="infocmp.1m.html">infocmp(1m)</A></STRONG> in that it does not merely
123 translate capability names, but also translates terminfo strings
124 to termcap format. Capabilities that are not translatable are
125 left in the entry under their terminfo names but commented out
126 with two preceding dots. The actual format used incorporates
127 some improvements for escaped characters from terminfo format.
128 For a stricter BSD-compatible translation, add the <STRONG>-K</STRONG> option.
130 If this is combined with <STRONG>-c</STRONG>, <STRONG>tic</STRONG> makes additional checks to
131 report cases where the terminfo values do not have an exact
132 equivalent in termcap form. For example:
134 <STRONG>o</STRONG> <STRONG>sgr</STRONG> usually will not convert, because termcap lacks the
135 ability to work with more than two parameters, and because
136 termcap lacks many of the arithmetic/logical operators used
139 <STRONG>o</STRONG> capabilities with more than one delay or with delays before
140 the end of the string will not convert completely.
142 <STRONG>-c</STRONG> tells <STRONG>tic</STRONG> to only check <EM>file</EM> for errors, including syntax prob-
143 lems and bad use-links. If you specify <STRONG>-C</STRONG> (<STRONG>-I</STRONG>) with this
144 option, the code will print warnings about entries which, after
145 use resolution, are more than 1023 (4096) bytes long. Due to a
146 fixed buffer length in older termcap libraries, as well as buggy
147 checking for the buffer length (and a documented limit in ter-
148 minfo), these entries may cause core dumps with other implemen-
151 <STRONG>tic</STRONG> checks string capabilities to ensure that those with parame-
152 ters will be valid expressions. It does this check only for the
153 predefined string capabilities; those which are defined with the
154 <STRONG>-x</STRONG> option are ignored.
156 <STRONG>-D</STRONG> tells <STRONG>tic</STRONG> to print the database locations that it knows about,
157 and exit. The first location shown is the one to which it would
158 write compiled terminal descriptions. If <STRONG>tic</STRONG> is not able to
159 find a writable database location according to the rules summa-
160 rized above, it will print a diagnostic and exit with an error
161 rather than printing a list of database locations.
163 <STRONG>-e</STRONG> <EM>names</EM>
164 Limit writes and translations to the following comma-separated
165 list of terminals. If any name or alias of a terminal matches
166 one of the names in the list, the entry will be written or
167 translated as normal. Otherwise no output will be generated for
168 it. The option value is interpreted as a file containing the
169 list if it contains a '/'. (Note: depending on how tic was com-
170 piled, this option may require <STRONG>-I</STRONG> or <STRONG>-C</STRONG>.)
172 <STRONG>-f</STRONG> Display complex terminfo strings which contain
173 if/then/else/endif expressions indented for readability.
175 <STRONG>-G</STRONG> Display constant literals in decimal form rather than their
176 character equivalents.
178 <STRONG>-g</STRONG> Display constant character literals in quoted form rather than
179 their decimal equivalents.
181 <STRONG>-I</STRONG> Force source translation to terminfo format.
183 <STRONG>-K</STRONG> Suppress some longstanding ncurses extensions to termcap format,
184 e.g., "\s" for space.
186 <STRONG>-L</STRONG> Force source translation to terminfo format using the long C
187 variable names listed in <<STRONG>term.h</STRONG>>
189 <STRONG>-N</STRONG> Disable smart defaults. Normally, when translating from termcap
190 to terminfo, the compiler makes a number of assumptions about
191 the defaults of string capabilities <STRONG>reset1_string</STRONG>, <STRONG>car-</STRONG>
192 <STRONG>riage_return</STRONG>, <STRONG>cursor_left</STRONG>, <STRONG>cursor_down</STRONG>, <STRONG>scroll_forward</STRONG>, <STRONG>tab</STRONG>,
193 <STRONG>newline</STRONG>, <STRONG>key_backspace</STRONG>, <STRONG>key_left</STRONG>, and <STRONG>key_down</STRONG>, then attempts to
194 use obsolete termcap capabilities to deduce correct values. It
195 also normally suppresses output of obsolete termcap capabilities
196 such as <STRONG>bs</STRONG>. This option forces a more literal translation that
197 also preserves the obsolete capabilities.
199 <STRONG>-o</STRONG><EM>dir</EM> Write compiled entries to given database location. Overrides
200 the TERMINFO environment variable.
202 <STRONG>-Q</STRONG><EM>n</EM> Rather than show source in terminfo (text) format, print the
203 compiled (binary) format in hexadecimal or base64 form, depend-
204 ing on the option's value:
210 3 hexadecimal and base64
212 <STRONG>-q</STRONG> Suppress comments and blank lines when showing translated
215 <STRONG>-R</STRONG><EM>subset</EM>
216 Restrict output to a given subset. This option is for use with
217 archaic versions of terminfo like those on SVr1, Ultrix, or
218 HP/UX that do not support the full set of SVR4/XSI Curses ter-
219 minfo; and outright broken ports like AIX 3.x that have their
220 own extensions incompatible with SVr4/XSI. Available subsets
221 are "SVr1", "Ultrix", "HP", "BSD" and "AIX"; see <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG> for
224 <STRONG>-r</STRONG> Force entry resolution (so there are no remaining tc capabili-
225 ties) even when doing translation to termcap format. This may
226 be needed if you are preparing a termcap file for a termcap
227 library (such as GNU termcap through version 1.3 or BSD termcap
228 through 4.3BSD) that does not handle multiple tc capabilities
231 <STRONG>-s</STRONG> Summarize the compile by showing the database location into
232 which entries are written, and the number of entries which are
235 <STRONG>-T</STRONG> eliminates size-restrictions on the generated text. This is
236 mainly useful for testing and analysis, since the compiled
237 descriptions are limited (e.g., 1023 for termcap, 4096 for ter-
240 <STRONG>-t</STRONG> tells <STRONG>tic</STRONG> to discard commented-out capabilities. Normally when
241 translating from terminfo to termcap, untranslatable capabili-
242 ties are commented-out.
244 <STRONG>-U</STRONG> tells <STRONG>tic</STRONG> to not post-process the data after parsing the source
245 file. Normally, it infers data which is commonly missing in older
246 terminfo data, or in termcaps.
248 <STRONG>-V</STRONG> reports the version of ncurses which was used in this program, and
251 <STRONG>-v</STRONG><EM>n</EM> specifies that (verbose) output be written to standard error trace
252 information showing <STRONG>tic</STRONG>'s progress.
254 The optional parameter <EM>n</EM> is a number from 1 to 10, inclusive,
255 indicating the desired level of detail of information. If ncurses
256 is built without tracing support, the optional parameter is
257 ignored. If <EM>n</EM> is omitted, the default level is 1. If <EM>n</EM> is speci-
258 fied and greater than 1, the level of detail is increased.
260 The debug flag levels are as follows:
262 1 Names of files created and linked
264 2 Information related to the "use" facility
266 3 Statistics from the hashing algorithm
268 5 String-table memory allocations
270 7 Entries into the string-table
272 8 List of tokens encountered by scanner
274 9 All values computed in construction of the hash table
276 If the debug level <EM>n</EM> is not given, it is taken to be one.
278 <STRONG>-W</STRONG> By itself, the <STRONG>-w</STRONG> option will not force long strings to be
279 wrapped. Use the <STRONG>-W</STRONG> option to do this.
281 If you specify both <STRONG>-f</STRONG> and <STRONG>-W</STRONG> options, the latter is ignored when
282 <STRONG>-f</STRONG> has already split the line.
284 <STRONG>-w</STRONG><EM>n</EM> specifies the width of the output. The parameter is optional. If
285 it is omitted, it defaults to 60.
287 <STRONG>-x</STRONG> Treat unknown capabilities as user-defined (see <STRONG>user_caps(5)</STRONG>).
288 That is, if you supply a capability name which <STRONG>tic</STRONG> does not recog-
289 nize, it will infer its type (boolean, number or string) from the
290 syntax and make an extended table entry for that. User-defined
291 capability strings whose name begins with "k" are treated as func-
295 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-PARAMETERS">PARAMETERS</a></H3><PRE>
296 <EM>file</EM> contains one or more <STRONG>terminfo</STRONG> terminal descriptions in source
297 format [see <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>]. Each description in the file
298 describes the capabilities of a particular terminal.
300 If <EM>file</EM> is "-", then the data is read from the standard input.
301 The <EM>file</EM> parameter may also be the path of a character-device.
304 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-PROCESSING">PROCESSING</a></H3><PRE>
305 All but one of the capabilities recognized by <STRONG>tic</STRONG> are documented in
306 <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>. The exception is the <STRONG>use</STRONG> capability.
308 When a <STRONG>use</STRONG>=<EM>entry</EM>-<EM>name</EM> field is discovered in a terminal entry currently
309 being compiled, <STRONG>tic</STRONG> reads in the binary from <STRONG>/usr/share/terminfo</STRONG> to
310 complete the entry. (Entries created from <EM>file</EM> will be used first.
311 <STRONG>tic</STRONG> duplicates the capabilities in <EM>entry</EM>-<EM>name</EM> for the current entry,
312 with the exception of those capabilities that explicitly are defined in
315 When an entry, e.g., <STRONG>entry_name_1</STRONG>, contains a <STRONG>use=</STRONG><EM>entry</EM>_<EM>name</EM>_<EM>2</EM> field,
316 any canceled capabilities in <EM>entry</EM>_<EM>name</EM>_<EM>2</EM> must also appear in
317 <STRONG>entry_name_1</STRONG> before <STRONG>use=</STRONG> for these capabilities to be canceled in
318 <STRONG>entry_name_1</STRONG>.
320 Total compiled entries cannot exceed 4096 bytes. The name field cannot
321 exceed 512 bytes. Terminal names exceeding the maximum alias length
322 (32 characters on systems with long filenames, 14 characters otherwise)
323 will be truncated to the maximum alias length and a warning message
327 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-COMPATIBILITY">COMPATIBILITY</a></H2><PRE>
328 There is some evidence that historic <STRONG>tic</STRONG> implementations treated
329 description fields with no whitespace in them as additional aliases or
330 short names. This <STRONG>tic</STRONG> does not do that, but it does warn when descrip-
331 tion fields may be treated that way and check them for dangerous char-
335 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-EXTENSIONS">EXTENSIONS</a></H2><PRE>
336 Unlike the SVr4 <STRONG>tic</STRONG> command, this implementation can actually compile
337 termcap sources. In fact, entries in terminfo and termcap syntax can
338 be mixed in a single source file. See <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG> for the list of
339 termcap names taken to be equivalent to terminfo names.
341 The SVr4 manual pages are not clear on the resolution rules for <STRONG>use</STRONG>
342 capabilities. This implementation of <STRONG>tic</STRONG> will find <STRONG>use</STRONG> targets any-
343 where in the source file, or anywhere in the file tree rooted at <STRONG>TER-</STRONG>
344 <STRONG>MINFO</STRONG> (if <STRONG>TERMINFO</STRONG> is defined), or in the user's <EM>$HOME/.terminfo</EM> data-
345 base (if it exists), or (finally) anywhere in the system's file tree of
348 The error messages from this <STRONG>tic</STRONG> have the same format as GNU C error
349 messages, and can be parsed by GNU Emacs's compile facility.
351 The <STRONG>-0</STRONG>, <STRONG>-1</STRONG>, <STRONG>-C</STRONG>, <STRONG>-G</STRONG>, <STRONG>-I</STRONG>, <STRONG>-N</STRONG>, <STRONG>-R</STRONG>, <STRONG>-T</STRONG>, <STRONG>-V</STRONG>, <STRONG>-a</STRONG>, <STRONG>-e</STRONG>, <STRONG>-f</STRONG>, <STRONG>-g</STRONG>, <STRONG>-o</STRONG>, <STRONG>-r</STRONG>, <STRONG>-s</STRONG>, <STRONG>-t</STRONG>
352 and <STRONG>-x</STRONG> options are not supported under SVr4. The SVr4 <STRONG>-c</STRONG> mode does not
353 report bad use links.
355 System V does not compile entries to or read entries from your
356 <EM>$HOME/.terminfo</EM> database unless TERMINFO is explicitly set to it.
359 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-FILES">FILES</a></H2><PRE>
360 <STRONG>/usr/share/terminfo/?/*</STRONG>
361 Compiled terminal description database.
364 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></H2><PRE>
365 <STRONG><A HREF="infocmp.1m.html">infocmp(1m)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="captoinfo.1m.html">captoinfo(1m)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="infotocap.1m.html">infotocap(1m)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="toe.1m.html">toe(1m)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">curses(3x)</A></STRONG>,
366 <STRONG><A HREF="term.5.html">term(5)</A></STRONG>. <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>. <STRONG><A HREF="user_caps.5.html">user_caps(5)</A></STRONG>.
368 This describes <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> version 6.1 (patch 20190713).
371 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-AUTHOR">AUTHOR</a></H2><PRE>
372 Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com> and
373 Thomas E. Dickey <dickey@invisible-island.net>
377 <STRONG><A HREF="tic.1m.html">tic(1m)</A></STRONG>
381 <li><a href="#h2-NAME">NAME</a></li>
382 <li><a href="#h2-SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a></li>
383 <li><a href="#h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a>
385 <li><a href="#h3-OPTIONS">OPTIONS</a></li>
386 <li><a href="#h3-PARAMETERS">PARAMETERS</a></li>
387 <li><a href="#h3-PROCESSING">PROCESSING</a></li>
390 <li><a href="#h2-COMPATIBILITY">COMPATIBILITY</a></li>
391 <li><a href="#h2-EXTENSIONS">EXTENSIONS</a></li>
392 <li><a href="#h2-FILES">FILES</a></li>
393 <li><a href="#h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></li>
394 <li><a href="#h2-AUTHOR">AUTHOR</a></li>