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43 <STRONG><A HREF="tic.1m.html">tic(1m)</A></STRONG> <STRONG><A HREF="tic.1m.html">tic(1m)</A></STRONG>
50 <STRONG>tic</STRONG> - the <EM>terminfo</EM> entry-description compiler
54 <H2>SYNOPSIS</H2><PRE>
55 <STRONG>tic</STRONG> [<STRONG>-1CGILNTVacfgrstx</STRONG>] [<STRONG>-e</STRONG> <EM>names</EM>] [<STRONG>-o</STRONG> <EM>dir</EM>] [<STRONG>-R</STRONG> <EM>subset</EM>]
56 [<STRONG>-v</STRONG>[<EM>n</EM>]] [<STRONG>-w</STRONG>[<EM>n</EM>]] <EM>file</EM>
60 <H2>DESCRIPTION</H2><PRE>
61 The command <STRONG>tic</STRONG> translates a <STRONG>terminfo</STRONG> file from source
62 format into compiled format. The compiled format is nec-
63 essary for use with the library routines in <STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">ncurses(3x)</A></STRONG>.
65 The results are normally placed in the system terminfo
66 directory <STRONG>/usr/share/terminfo</STRONG>. There are two ways to
69 First, you may override the system default by setting the
70 variable <STRONG>TERMINFO</STRONG> in your shell environment to a valid
71 (existing) directory name.
73 Secondly, if <STRONG>tic</STRONG> cannot get access to <EM>/usr/share/terminfo</EM>
74 or your TERMINFO directory, it looks for the directory
75 <EM>$HOME/.terminfo</EM>; if that directory exists, the entry is
78 Libraries that read terminfo entries are expected to check
79 for a TERMINFO directory first, look at <EM>$HOME/.terminfo</EM> if
80 TERMINFO is not set, and finally look in <EM>/usr/share/ter-</EM>
83 <STRONG>-1</STRONG> restricts the output to a single column
85 <STRONG>-a</STRONG> tells <STRONG>tic</STRONG> to retain commented-out capabilities
86 rather than discarding them. Capabilities are com-
87 mented by prefixing them with a period. This sets
88 the <STRONG>-x</STRONG> option, because it treats the commented-out
89 entries as user-defined names. If the source is
90 termcap, accept the 2-character names required by
91 version 6. Otherwise these are ignored.
93 <STRONG>-C</STRONG> Force source translation to termcap format. Note:
94 this differs from the <STRONG>-C</STRONG> option of <STRONG><A HREF="infocmp.1m.html">infocmp(1m)</A></STRONG> in
95 that it does not merely translate capability names,
96 but also translates terminfo strings to termcap
97 format. Capabilities that are not translatable are
98 left in the entry under their terminfo names but
99 commented out with two preceding dots.
101 <STRONG>-c</STRONG> tells <STRONG>tic</STRONG> to only check <EM>file</EM> for errors, including
102 syntax problems and bad use links. If you specify
103 <STRONG>-C</STRONG> (<STRONG>-I</STRONG>) with this option, the code will print warn-
104 ings about entries which, after use resolution, are
105 more than 1023 (4096) bytes long. Due to a fixed
106 buffer length in older termcap libraries (and a
107 documented limit in terminfo), these entries may
110 <STRONG>-e</STRONG> <EM>names</EM>
111 Limit writes and translations to the following
112 comma-separated list of terminals. If any name or
113 alias of a terminal matches one of the names in the
114 list, the entry will be written or translated as
115 normal. Otherwise no output will be generated for
116 it. The option value is interpreted as a file con-
117 taining the list if it contains a '/'. (Note:
118 depending on how tic was compiled, this option may
119 require <STRONG>-I</STRONG> or <STRONG>-C</STRONG>.)
121 <STRONG>-f</STRONG> Display complex terminfo strings which contain
122 if/then/else/endif expressions indented for read-
125 <STRONG>-G</STRONG> Display constant literals in decimal form rather
126 than their character equivalents.
128 <STRONG>-g</STRONG> Display constant character literals in quoted form
129 rather than their decimal equivalents.
131 <STRONG>-I</STRONG> Force source translation to terminfo format.
133 <STRONG>-L</STRONG> Force source translation to terminfo format using
134 the long C variable names listed in <<STRONG>term.h</STRONG>>
136 <STRONG>-N</STRONG> Disable smart defaults. Normally, when translating
137 from termcap to terminfo, the compiler makes a num-
138 ber of assumptions about the defaults of string
139 capabilities <STRONG>reset1_string</STRONG>, <STRONG>carriage_return</STRONG>, <STRONG>cur-</STRONG>
140 <STRONG>sor_left</STRONG>, <STRONG>cursor_down</STRONG>, <STRONG>scroll_forward</STRONG>, <STRONG>tab</STRONG>, <STRONG>new-</STRONG>
141 <STRONG>line</STRONG>, <STRONG>key_backspace</STRONG>, <STRONG>key_left</STRONG>, and <STRONG>key_down</STRONG>, then
142 attempts to use obsolete termcap capabilities to
143 deduce correct values. It also normally suppresses
144 output of obsolete termcap capabilities such as <STRONG>bs</STRONG>.
145 This option forces a more literal translation that
146 also preserves the obsolete capabilities.
148 <STRONG>-o</STRONG><EM>dir</EM> Write compiled entries to given directory. Over-
149 rides the TERMINFO environment variable.
151 <STRONG>-R</STRONG><EM>subset</EM>
152 Restrict output to a given subset. This option is
153 for use with archaic versions of terminfo like
154 those on SVr1, Ultrix, or HP/UX that do not support
155 the full set of SVR4/XSI Curses terminfo; and out-
156 right broken ports like AIX 3.x that have their own
157 extensions incompatible with SVr4/XSI. Available
158 subsets are "SVr1", "Ultrix", "HP", "BSD" and
159 "AIX"; see <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG> for details.
161 <STRONG>-r</STRONG> Force entry resolution (so there are no remaining
162 tc capabilities) even when doing translation to
163 termcap format. This may be needed if you are
164 preparing a termcap file for a termcap library
165 (such as GNU termcap through version 1.3 or BSD
166 termcap through 4.3BSD) that does not handle multi-
167 ple tc capabilities per entry.
169 <STRONG>-s</STRONG> Summarize the compile by showing the directory into
170 which entries are written, and the number of
171 entries which are compiled.
173 <STRONG>-T</STRONG> eliminates size-restrictions on the generated text.
174 This is mainly useful for testing and analysis,
175 since the compiled descriptions are limited (e.g.,
176 1023 for termcap, 4096 for terminfo).
178 <STRONG>-t</STRONG> tells <STRONG>tic</STRONG> to discard commented-out capabilities.
179 Normally when translating from terminfo to termcap,
180 untranslatable capabilities are commented-out.
182 <STRONG>-V</STRONG> reports the version of ncurses which was used in
183 this program, and exits.
185 <STRONG>-v</STRONG><EM>n</EM> specifies that (verbose) output be written to stan-
186 dard error trace information showing <STRONG>tic</STRONG>'s
187 progress. The optional integer <EM>n</EM> is a number from
188 1 to 10, inclusive, indicating the desired level of
189 detail of information. If <EM>n</EM> is omitted, the
190 default level is 1. If <EM>n</EM> is specified and greater
191 than 1, the level of detail is increased.
193 <STRONG>-w</STRONG><EM>n</EM> specifies the width of the output.
195 <STRONG>-x</STRONG> Treat unknown capabilities as user-defined. That
196 is, if you supply a capability name which <STRONG>tic</STRONG> does
197 not recognize, it will infer its type (boolean,
198 number or string) from the syntax and make an
199 extended table entry for that. User-defined capa-
200 bility strings whose name begins with ``k'' are
201 treated as function keys.
203 <EM>file</EM> contains one or more <STRONG>terminfo</STRONG> terminal descriptions
204 in source format [see <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>]. Each descrip-
205 tion in the file describes the capabilities of a
208 The debug flag levels are as follows:
210 1 Names of files created and linked
212 2 Information related to the ``use'' facility
214 3 Statistics from the hashing algorithm
216 5 String-table memory allocations
218 7 Entries into the string-table
220 8 List of tokens encountered by scanner
222 9 All values computed in construction of the hash ta-
225 If the debug level <EM>n</EM> is not given, it is taken to be one.
227 All but one of the capabilities recognized by <STRONG>tic</STRONG> are doc-
228 umented in <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>. The exception is the <STRONG>use</STRONG> capabil-
231 When a <STRONG>use</STRONG>=<EM>entry</EM>-<EM>name</EM> field is discovered in a terminal
232 entry currently being compiled, <STRONG>tic</STRONG> reads in the binary
233 from <STRONG>/usr/share/terminfo</STRONG> to complete the entry. (Entries
234 created from <EM>file</EM> will be used first. If the environment
235 variable <STRONG>TERMINFO</STRONG> is set, that directory is searched
236 instead of <STRONG>/usr/share/terminfo</STRONG>.) <STRONG>tic</STRONG> duplicates the capa-
237 bilities in <EM>entry</EM>-<EM>name</EM> for the current entry, with the
238 exception of those capabilities that explicitly are
239 defined in the current entry.
241 When an entry, e.g., <STRONG>entry_name_1</STRONG>, contains a
242 <STRONG>use=</STRONG><EM>entry</EM>_<EM>name</EM>_<EM>2</EM> field, any canceled capabilities in
243 <EM>entry</EM>_<EM>name</EM>_<EM>2</EM> must also appear in <STRONG>entry_name_1</STRONG> before <STRONG>use=</STRONG>
244 for these capabilities to be canceled in <STRONG>entry_name_1</STRONG>.
246 If the environment variable <STRONG>TERMINFO</STRONG> is set, the compiled
247 results are placed there instead of <STRONG>/usr/share/terminfo</STRONG>.
249 Total compiled entries cannot exceed 4096 bytes. The name
250 field cannot exceed 512 bytes. Terminal names exceeding
251 the maximum alias length (32 characters on systems with
252 long filenames, 14 characters otherwise) will be truncated
253 to the maximum alias length and a warning message will be
258 <H2>COMPATIBILITY</H2><PRE>
259 There is some evidence that historic <STRONG>tic</STRONG> implementations
260 treated description fields with no whitespace in them as
261 additional aliases or short names. This <STRONG>tic</STRONG> does not do
262 that, but it does warn when description fields may be
263 treated that way and check them for dangerous characters.
267 <H2>EXTENSIONS</H2><PRE>
268 Unlike the stock SVr4 <STRONG>tic</STRONG> command, this implementation can
269 actually compile termcap sources. In fact, entries in
270 terminfo and termcap syntax can be mixed in a single
271 source file. See <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG> for the list of termcap
272 names taken to be equivalent to terminfo names.
274 The SVr4 manual pages are not clear on the resolution
275 rules for <STRONG>use</STRONG> capabilities. This implementation of <STRONG>tic</STRONG>
276 will find <STRONG>use</STRONG> targets anywhere in the source file, or any-
277 where in the file tree rooted at <STRONG>TERMINFO</STRONG> (if <STRONG>TERMINFO</STRONG> is
278 defined), or in the user's <EM>$HOME/.terminfo</EM> directory (if
279 it exists), or (finally) anywhere in the system's file
280 tree of compiled entries.
282 The error messages from this <STRONG>tic</STRONG> have the same format as
283 GNU C error messages, and can be parsed by GNU Emacs's
286 The <STRONG>-C</STRONG>, <STRONG>-G</STRONG>, <STRONG>-I</STRONG>, <STRONG>-N</STRONG>, <STRONG>-R</STRONG>, <STRONG>-T</STRONG>, <STRONG>-V</STRONG>, <STRONG>-a</STRONG>, <STRONG>-e</STRONG>, <STRONG>-f</STRONG>, <STRONG>-g</STRONG>, <STRONG>-o</STRONG>, <STRONG>-r</STRONG>,
287 <STRONG>-s</STRONG>, <STRONG>-t</STRONG> and <STRONG>-x</STRONG> options are not supported under SVr4. The
288 SVr4 <STRONG>-c</STRONG> mode does not report bad use links.
290 System V does not compile entries to or read entries from
291 your <EM>$HOME/.terminfo</EM> directory unless TERMINFO is explic-
297 <STRONG>/usr/share/terminfo/?/*</STRONG>
298 Compiled terminal description database.
302 <H2>SEE ALSO</H2><PRE>
303 <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>,
304 <STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">curses(3x)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>.
308 <STRONG><A HREF="tic.1m.html">tic(1m)</A></STRONG>
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