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30 * @Id: tic.1m,v 1.35 2003/05/11 00:32:53 tom Exp @
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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.
91 <STRONG>-C</STRONG> Force source translation to termcap format. Note:
92 this differs from the <STRONG>-C</STRONG> option of <STRONG><A HREF="infocmp.1m.html">infocmp(1m)</A></STRONG> in
93 that it does not merely translate capability names,
94 but also translates terminfo strings to termcap
95 format. Capabilities that are not translatable are
96 left in the entry under their terminfo names but
97 commented out with two preceding dots.
99 <STRONG>-c</STRONG> tells <STRONG>tic</STRONG> to only check <EM>file</EM> for errors, including
100 syntax problems and bad use links. If you specify
101 <STRONG>-C</STRONG> (<STRONG>-I</STRONG>) with this option, the code will print warn-
102 ings about entries which, after use resolution, are
103 more than 1023 (4096) bytes long. Due to a fixed
104 buffer length in older termcap libraries (and a
105 documented limit in terminfo), these entries may
108 <STRONG>-e</STRONG> <EM>names</EM>
109 Limit writes and translations to the following
110 comma-separated list of terminals. If any name or
111 alias of a terminal matches one of the names in the
112 list, the entry will be written or translated as
113 normal. Otherwise no output will be generated for
114 it. The option value is interpreted as a file
115 containing the list if it contains a '/'. (Note:
116 depending on how tic was compiled, this option may
117 require <STRONG>-I</STRONG> or <STRONG>-C</STRONG>.)
119 <STRONG>-f</STRONG> Display complex terminfo strings which contain
120 if/then/else/endif expressions indented for read-
123 <STRONG>-G</STRONG> Display constant literals in decimal form rather
124 than their character equivalents.
126 <STRONG>-g</STRONG> Display constant character literals in quoted form
127 rather than their decimal equivalents.
129 <STRONG>-I</STRONG> Force source translation to terminfo format.
131 <STRONG>-L</STRONG> Force source translation to terminfo format using
132 the long C variable names listed in <<STRONG>term.h</STRONG>>
134 <STRONG>-N</STRONG> Disable smart defaults. Normally, when translating
135 from termcap to terminfo, the compiler makes a num-
136 ber of assumptions about the defaults of string
137 capabilities <STRONG>reset1_string</STRONG>, <STRONG>carriage_return</STRONG>, <STRONG>cur-</STRONG>
138 <STRONG>sor_left</STRONG>, <STRONG>cursor_down</STRONG>, <STRONG>scroll_forward</STRONG>, <STRONG>tab</STRONG>, <STRONG>new-</STRONG>
139 <STRONG>line</STRONG>, <STRONG>key_backspace</STRONG>, <STRONG>key_left</STRONG>, and <STRONG>key_down</STRONG>, then
140 attempts to use obsolete termcap capabilities to
141 deduce correct values. It also normally suppresses
142 output of obsolete termcap capabilities such as <STRONG>bs</STRONG>.
143 This option forces a more literal translation that
144 also preserves the obsolete capabilities.
146 <STRONG>-o</STRONG><EM>dir</EM> Write compiled entries to given directory. Over-
147 rides the TERMINFO environment variable.
149 <STRONG>-R</STRONG><EM>subset</EM>
150 Restrict output to a given subset. This option is
151 for use with archaic versions of terminfo like
152 those on SVr1, Ultrix, or HP/UX that do not support
153 the full set of SVR4/XSI Curses terminfo; and out-
154 right broken ports like AIX 3.x that have their own
155 extensions incompatible with SVr4/XSI. Available
156 subsets are "SVr1", "Ultrix", "HP", "BSD" and
157 "AIX"; see <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG> for details.
159 <STRONG>-r</STRONG> Force entry resolution (so there are no remaining
160 tc capabilities) even when doing translation to
161 termcap format. This may be needed if you are
162 preparing a termcap file for a termcap library
163 (such as GNU termcap through version 1.3 or BSD
164 termcap through 4.3BSD) that does not handle multi-
165 ple tc capabilities per entry.
167 <STRONG>-s</STRONG> Summarize the compile by showing the directory into
168 which entries are written, and the number of
169 entries which are compiled.
171 <STRONG>-T</STRONG> eliminates size-restrictions on the generated text.
172 This is mainly useful for testing and analysis,
173 since the compiled descriptions are limited (e.g.,
174 1023 for termcap, 4096 for terminfo).
176 <STRONG>-t</STRONG> tells <STRONG>tic</STRONG> to discard commented-out capabilities.
177 Normally when translating from terminfo to termcap,
178 untranslatable capabilities are commented-out.
180 <STRONG>-V</STRONG> reports the version of ncurses which was used in
181 this program, and exits.
183 <STRONG>-v</STRONG><EM>n</EM> specifies that (verbose) output be written to stan-
184 dard error trace information showing <STRONG>tic</STRONG>'s
185 progress. The optional integer <EM>n</EM> is a number from
186 1 to 10, inclusive, indicating the desired level of
187 detail of information. If <EM>n</EM> is omitted, the
188 default level is 1. If <EM>n</EM> is specified and greater
189 than 1, the level of detail is increased.
191 <STRONG>-w</STRONG><EM>n</EM> specifies the width of the output.
193 <STRONG>-x</STRONG> Treat unknown capabilities as user-defined. That
194 is, if you supply a capability name which <STRONG>tic</STRONG> does
195 not recognize, it will infer its type (boolean,
196 number or string) from the syntax and make an
197 extended table entry for that.
199 <EM>file</EM> contains one or more <STRONG>terminfo</STRONG> terminal descriptions
200 in source format [see <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>]. Each descrip-
201 tion in the file describes the capabilities of a
204 The debug flag levels are as follows:
206 1 Names of files created and linked
208 2 Information related to the ``use'' facility
210 3 Statistics from the hashing algorithm
212 5 String-table memory allocations
214 7 Entries into the string-table
216 8 List of tokens encountered by scanner
218 9 All values computed in construction of the hash
221 If the debug level <EM>n</EM> is not given, it is taken to be one.
223 All but one of the capabilities recognized by <STRONG>tic</STRONG> are doc-
224 umented in <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>. The exception is the <STRONG>use</STRONG> capabil-
227 When a <STRONG>use</STRONG>=<EM>entry</EM>-<EM>name</EM> field is discovered in a terminal
228 entry currently being compiled, <STRONG>tic</STRONG> reads in the binary
229 from <STRONG>/usr/share/terminfo</STRONG> to complete the entry. (Entries
230 created from <EM>file</EM> will be used first. If the environment
231 variable <STRONG>TERMINFO</STRONG> is set, that directory is searched
232 instead of <STRONG>/usr/share/terminfo</STRONG>.) <STRONG>tic</STRONG> duplicates the capa-
233 bilities in <EM>entry</EM>-<EM>name</EM> for the current entry, with the
234 exception of those capabilities that explicitly are
235 defined in the current entry.
237 When an entry, e.g., <STRONG>entry_name_1</STRONG>, contains a
238 <STRONG>use=</STRONG><EM>entry</EM>_<EM>name</EM>_<EM>2</EM> field, any canceled capabilities in
239 <EM>entry</EM>_<EM>name</EM>_<EM>2</EM> must also appear in <STRONG>entry_name_1</STRONG> before <STRONG>use=</STRONG>
240 for these capabilities to be canceled in <STRONG>entry_name_1</STRONG>.
242 If the environment variable <STRONG>TERMINFO</STRONG> is set, the compiled
243 results are placed there instead of <STRONG>/usr/share/terminfo</STRONG>.
245 Total compiled entries cannot exceed 4096 bytes. The name
246 field cannot exceed 512 bytes. Terminal names exceeding
247 the maximum alias length (32 characters on systems with
248 long filenames, 14 characters otherwise) will be truncated
249 to the maximum alias length and a warning message will be
254 <H2>COMPATIBILITY</H2><PRE>
255 There is some evidence that historic <STRONG>tic</STRONG> implementations
256 treated description fields with no whitespace in them as
257 additional aliases or short names. This <STRONG>tic</STRONG> does not do
258 that, but it does warn when description fields may be
259 treated that way and check them for dangerous characters.
263 <H2>EXTENSIONS</H2><PRE>
264 Unlike the stock SVr4 <STRONG>tic</STRONG> command, this implementation can
265 actually compile termcap sources. In fact, entries in
266 terminfo and termcap syntax can be mixed in a single
267 source file. See <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG> for the list of termcap
268 names taken to be equivalent to terminfo names.
270 The SVr4 manual pages are not clear on the resolution
271 rules for <STRONG>use</STRONG> capabilities. This implementation of <STRONG>tic</STRONG>
272 will find <STRONG>use</STRONG> targets anywhere in the source file, or any-
273 where in the file tree rooted at <STRONG>TERMINFO</STRONG> (if <STRONG>TERMINFO</STRONG> is
274 defined), or in the user's <EM>$HOME/.terminfo</EM> directory (if
275 it exists), or (finally) anywhere in the system's file
276 tree of compiled entries.
278 The error messages from this <STRONG>tic</STRONG> have the same format as
279 GNU C error messages, and can be parsed by GNU Emacs's
282 The <STRONG>-C</STRONG>, <STRONG>-G</STRONG>, <STRONG>-I</STRONG>, <STRONG>-N</STRONG>, <STRONG>-R</STRONG>, <STRONG>-T</STRONG>, <STRONG>-V</STRONG>, <STRONG>-a</STRONG>, <STRONG>-e</STRONG>, <STRONG>-f</STRONG>, <STRONG>-g</STRONG>, <STRONG>-o</STRONG>, <STRONG>-r</STRONG>,
283 <STRONG>-s</STRONG>, <STRONG>-t</STRONG> and <STRONG>-x</STRONG> options are not supported under SVr4. The
284 SVr4 <STRONG>-c</STRONG> mode does not report bad use links.
286 System V does not compile entries to or read entries from
287 your <EM>$HOME/.terminfo</EM> directory unless TERMINFO is explic-
293 <STRONG>/usr/share/terminfo/?/*</STRONG>
294 Compiled terminal description database.
298 <H2>SEE ALSO</H2><PRE>
299 <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>,
300 <STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">curses(3x)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>.
304 <STRONG><A HREF="tic.1m.html">tic(1m)</A></STRONG>
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