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8 <B>tic</B> - the <I>terminfo</I> entry-description compiler
12 <H2>SYNOPSIS</H2><PRE>
13 <B>tic</B> [<B>-1CINRTVacfrsx</B>] [<B>-e</B> <I>names</I>] [<B>-o</B> <I>dir</I>] [<B>-v</B>[<I>n</I>]] [<B>-w</B>[<I>n</I>]]
18 <H2>DESCRIPTION</H2><PRE>
19 The command <B>tic</B> translates a <B>terminfo</B> file from source
20 format into compiled format. The compiled format is nec-
21 essary for use with the library routines in <B><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">ncurses(3x)</A></B>.
23 The results are normally placed in the system terminfo
24 directory <B>/usr/share/terminfo</B>. There are two ways to
27 First, you may override the system default by setting the
28 variable <B>TERMINFO</B> in your shell environment to a valid
29 (existing) directory name.
31 Secondly, if <B>tic</B> cannot get access to <I>/usr/share/terminfo</I>
32 or your TERMINFO directory, it looks for the directory
33 <I>$HOME/.terminfo</I>; if that directory exists, the entry is
36 Libraries that read terminfo entries are expected to check
37 for a TERMINFO directory first, look at <I>$HOME/.terminfo</I> if
38 TERMINFO is not set, and finally look in <I>/usr/share/ter-</I>
41 <B>-a</B> tells <B>tic</B> to retain commented-out capabilities
42 rather than discarding them. Capabilities are com-
43 mented by prefixing them with a period. This sets
44 the <B>-x</B> option, because it treats the commented-out
45 entries as user-defined names.
47 <B>-c</B> tells <B>tic</B> to only check <I>file</I> for errors, including
48 syntax problems and bad use links. If you specify
49 <B>-C</B> (<B>-I</B>) with this option, the code will print warn-
50 ings about entries which, after use resolution, are
51 more than 1023 (4096) bytes long. Due to a fixed
52 buffer length in older termcap libraries (and a
53 documented limit in terminfo), these entries may
56 <B>-v</B><I>n</I> specifies that (verbose) output be written to stan-
57 dard error trace information showing <B>tic</B>'s
58 progress. The optional integer <I>n</I> is a number from
59 1 to 10, inclusive, indicating the desired level of
60 detail of information. If <I>n</I> is omitted, the
61 default level is 1. If <I>n</I> is specified and greater
62 than 1, the level of detail is increased.
64 <B>-o</B><I>dir</I> Write compiled entries to given directory.
65 Overrides the TERMINFO environment variable.
67 <B>-w</B><I>n</I> specifies the width of the output.
69 <B>-1</B> restricts the output to a single column
71 <B>-C</B> Force source translation to termcap format. Note:
72 this differs from the -C option of <B><A HREF="infocmp.1m.html">infocmp(1m)</A></B> in
73 that it does not merely translate capability names,
74 but also translates terminfo strings to termcap
75 format. Capabilities that are not translatable are
76 left in the entry under their terminfo names but
77 commented out with two preceding dots.
79 <B>-G</B> Display constant literals in decimal form rather
80 than their character equivalents.
82 <B>-I</B> Force source translation to terminfo format.
84 <B>-L</B> Force source translation to terminfo format using
85 the long C variable names listed in <<B>term.h</B>>
87 <B>-N</B> Disable smart defaults. Normally, when translating
88 from termcap to terminfo, the compiler makes a num-
89 ber of assumptions about the defaults of string
90 capabilities <B>reset1_string</B>, <B>carriage_return</B>, <B>cur-</B>
91 <B>sor_left</B>, <B>cursor_down</B>, <B>scroll_forward</B>, <B>tab</B>, <B>new-</B>
92 <B>line</B>, <B>key_backspace</B>, <B>key_left</B>, and <B>key_down</B>, then
93 attempts to use obsolete termcap capabilities to
94 deduce correct values. It also normally suppresses
95 output of obsolete termcap capabilities such as <B>bs</B>.
96 This option forces a more literal translation that
97 also preserves the obsolete capabilities.
99 <B>-R</B><I>subset</I>
100 Restrict output to a given subset. This option is
101 for use with archaic versions of terminfo like
102 those on SVr1, Ultrix, or HP/UX that don't support
103 the full set of SVR4/XSI Curses terminfo; and out-
104 right broken ports like AIX 3.x that have their own
105 extensions incompatible with SVr4/XSI. Available
106 subsets are "SVr1", "Ultrix", "HP", "BSD" and
107 "AIX"; see <B><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></B> for details.
109 <B>-T</B> eliminates size-restrictions on the generated text.
110 This is mainly useful for testing and analysis,
111 since the compiled descriptions are limited (e.g.,
112 1023 for termcap, 4096 for terminfo).
114 <B>-V</B> reports the version of ncurses which was used in
115 this program, and exits.
117 <B>-r</B> Force entry resolution (so there are no remaining
118 tc capabilities) even when doing translation to
119 termcap format. This may be needed if you are
120 preparing a termcap file for a termcap library
121 (such as GNU termcap up to version 1.3 or BSD term-
122 cap up to 4.3BSD) that doesn't handle multiple tc
123 capabilities per entry.
125 <B>-e</B> Limit writes and translations to the following
126 comma-separated list of terminals. If any name or
127 alias of a terminal matches one of the names in the
128 list, the entry will be written or translated as
129 normal. Otherwise no output will be generated for
130 it. The option value is interpreted as a file con-
131 taining the list if it contains a '/'. (Note:
132 depending on how tic was compiled, this option may
135 <B>-f</B> Display complex terminfo strings which contain
136 if/then/else/endif expressions indented for read-
139 <B>-g</B> Display constant character literals in quoted form
140 rather than their decimal equivalents.
142 <B>-s</B> Summarize the compile by showing the directory into
143 which entries are written, and the number of
144 entries which are compiled.
146 <B>-x</B> Treat unknown capabilities as user-defined. That
147 is, if you supply a capability name which <B>tic</B> does
148 not recognize, it will infer its type (boolean,
149 number or string) from the syntax and make an
150 extended table entry for that.
152 <I>file</I> contains one or more <B>terminfo</B> terminal descriptions
153 in source format [see <B><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></B>]. Each descrip-
154 tion in the file describes the capabilities of a
157 The debug flag levels are as follows:
159 1 Names of files created and linked
161 2 Information related to the ``use'' facility
163 3 Statistics from the hashing algorithm
165 5 String-table memory allocations
167 7 Entries into the string-table
169 8 List of tokens encountered by scanner
171 9 All values computed in construction of the hash
174 If n is not given, it is taken to be one.
176 All but one of the capabilities recognized by <B>tic</B> are doc-
177 umented in <B><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></B>. The exception is the <B>use</B> capabil-
180 When a <B>use</B>=<I>entry</I>-<I>name</I> field is discovered in a terminal
181 entry currently being compiled, <B>tic</B> reads in the binary
182 from <B>/usr/share/terminfo</B> to complete the entry. (Entries
183 created from <I>file</I> will be used first. If the environment
184 variable <B>TERMINFO</B> is set, that directory is searched
185 instead of <B>/usr/share/terminfo</B>.) <B>tic</B> duplicates the capa-
186 bilities in <I>entry</I>-<I>name</I> for the current entry, with the
187 exception of those capabilities that explicitly are
188 defined in the current entry.
190 When an entry, e.g., <B>entry_name_1</B>, contains a
191 <B>use=</B><I>entry</I>_<I>name</I>_<I>2</I> field, any canceled capabilities in
192 <I>entry</I>_<I>name</I>_<I>2</I> must also appear in <B>entry_name_1</B> before <B>use=</B>
193 for these capabilities to be canceled in <B>entry_name_1</B>.
195 If the environment variable <B>TERMINFO</B> is set, the compiled
196 results are placed there instead of <B>/usr/share/terminfo</B>.
198 Total compiled entries cannot exceed 4096 bytes. The name
199 field cannot exceed 512 bytes. Terminal names exceeding
200 the maximum alias length (32 characters on systems with
201 long filenames, 14 characters otherwise) will be truncated
202 to the maximum alias length and a warning message will be
207 <H2>COMPATIBILITY</H2><PRE>
208 There is some evidence that historic <B>tic</B> implementations
209 treated description fields with no whitespace in them as
210 additional aliases or short names. This <B>tic</B> does not do
211 that, but it does warn when description fields may be
212 treated that way and check them for dangerous characters.
216 <H2>EXTENSIONS</H2><PRE>
217 Unlike the stock SVr4 <B>tic</B> command, this implementation can
218 actually compile termcap sources. In fact, entries in
219 terminfo and termcap syntax can be mixed in a single
220 source file. See <B><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></B> for the list of termcap
221 names taken to be equivalent to terminfo names.
223 The SVr4 manual pages are not clear on the resolution
224 rules for <B>use</B> capabilities. This implementation of <B>tic</B>
225 will find <B>use</B> targets anywhere in the source file, or any-
226 where in the file tree rooted at <B>TERMINFO</B> (if <B>TERMINFO</B> is
227 defined), or in the user's <I>$HOME/.terminfo</I> directory (if
228 it exists), or (finally) anywhere in the system's file
229 tree of compiled entries.
231 The error messages from this <B>tic</B> have the same format as
232 GNU C error messages, and can be parsed by GNU Emacs's
235 The <B>-C</B>, <B>-G</B>, <B>-I</B>, <B>-N</B>, <B>-R</B>, <B>-T</B>, <B>-V</B>, <B>-a</B>, <B>-e</B>, <B>-f</B>, <B>-g</B>, <B>-o</B>, <B>-r</B>, <B>-s</B>
236 and <B>-x</B> options are not supported under SVr4. The SVr4 -c
237 mode does not report bad use links.
239 System V does not compile entries to or read entries from
240 your <I>$HOME/.terminfo</I> directory unless TERMINFO is explic-
246 <B>/usr/share/terminfo/?/*</B>
247 Compiled terminal description database.
251 <H2>SEE ALSO</H2><PRE>
252 <B><A HREF="infocmp.1m.html">infocmp(1m)</A></B>, <B><A HREF="captoinfo.1m.html">captoinfo(1m)</A></B>, <B><A HREF="infotocap.1m.html">infotocap(1m)</A></B>, <B><A HREF="toe.1m.html">toe(1m)</A></B>,
253 <B><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">curses(3x)</A></B>, <B><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></B>.
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