[ncurses.git] / man / tic.1m

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.\" $Id: tic.1m,v 1.46 2010/08/28 19:41:09 tom Exp $
.TH @TIC@ 1M ""
.ds n 5
.ds d @TERMINFO@
.SH NAME
\fBtic\fR \- the \fIterminfo\fR entry-description compiler
.SH SYNOPSIS
\fBtic\fR
[\fB\-\
1\
C\
G\
I\
L\
N\
T\
U\
V\
a\
c\
f\
g\
r\
s\
t\
x\
\fR]
[\fB\-e\fR \fInames\fR]
[\fB\-o\fR \fIdir\fR]
[\fB\-R\fR \fIsubset\fR]
[\fB\-v\fR[\fIn\fR]]
[\fB\-w\fR[\fIn\fR]]
\fIfile\fR
.br
.SH DESCRIPTION
The command \fBtic\fR translates a \fBterminfo\fR file from source
format into compiled format.
The compiled format is necessary for use with
the library routines in \fBncurses\fR(3X).
.PP
The results are normally placed in the system terminfo
directory \fB\*d\fR.
There are two ways to change this behavior.
.PP
First, you may override the system default by setting the variable
\fBTERMINFO\fR in your shell environment to a valid (existing) directory name.
.PP
Secondly, if \fBtic\fR cannot get access to \fI\*d\fR or your TERMINFO
directory, it looks for the directory \fI$HOME/.terminfo\fR; if that directory
exists, the entry is placed there.
.PP
Libraries that read terminfo entries are expected to check for a TERMINFO
directory first, look at \fI$HOME/.terminfo\fR if TERMINFO is not set, and
finally look in \fI\*d\fR.
.TP
\fB\-1\fR
restricts the output to a single column
.TP
\fB\-a\fR
tells \fBtic\fP to retain commented-out capabilities rather than discarding
them.
Capabilities are commented by prefixing them with a period.
This sets the \fB\-x\fR option, because it treats the commented-out
entries as user-defined names.
If the source is termcap, accept the 2-character names required by version 6.
Otherwise these are ignored.
.TP
\fB\-C\fR
Force source translation to termcap format.
Note: this differs from the \fB\-C\fR
option of \fB@INFOCMP@\fR(1M) in that it does not merely translate capability
names, but also translates terminfo strings to termcap format.
Capabilities
that are not translatable are left in the entry under their terminfo names
but commented out with two preceding dots.
.TP
\fB\-c\fR
tells \fBtic\fP to only check \fIfile\fR for errors, including syntax problems and
bad use links.
If you specify \fB\-C\fR (\fB\-I\fR) with this option, the code
will print warnings about entries which, after use resolution, are more than
1023 (4096) bytes long.
Due to a fixed buffer length in older termcap
libraries (and a documented limit in terminfo), these entries may cause core
dumps.
.TP
\fB\-e \fR\fInames\fR
Limit writes and translations to the following comma-separated list of
terminals.
If any name or alias of a terminal matches one of the names in
the list, the entry will be written or translated as normal.
Otherwise no output will be generated for it.
The option value is interpreted as a file containing the list if it
contains a '/'.
(Note: depending on how tic was compiled, this option may require \fB\-I\fR or \fB\-C\fR.)
.TP
\fB\-f\fR
Display complex terminfo strings which contain if/then/else/endif expressions
indented for readability.
.TP
\fB\-G\fR
Display constant literals in decimal form
rather than their character equivalents.
.TP
\fB\-g\fR
Display constant character literals in quoted form
rather than their decimal equivalents.
.TP
\fB\-I\fR
Force source translation to terminfo format.
.TP
\fB\-L\fR
Force source translation to terminfo format
using the long C variable names listed in <\fBterm.h\fR>
.TP
\fB\-N\fR
Disable smart defaults.
Normally, when translating from termcap to terminfo, the compiler makes
a number of assumptions about the defaults of string capabilities
\fBreset1_string\fR, \fBcarriage_return\fR, \fBcursor_left\fR,
\fBcursor_down\fR, \fBscroll_forward\fR, \fBtab\fR, \fBnewline\fR,
\fBkey_backspace\fR, \fBkey_left\fR, and \fBkey_down\fR, then attempts
to use obsolete termcap capabilities to deduce correct values.
It also
normally suppresses output of obsolete termcap capabilities such as \fBbs\fR.
This option forces a more literal translation that also preserves the
obsolete capabilities.
.TP
\fB\-o\fR\fIdir\fR
Write compiled entries to given directory.
Overrides the TERMINFO environment
variable.
.TP
\fB\-R\fR\fIsubset\fR
Restrict output to a given subset.
This option is for use with archaic
versions of terminfo like those on SVr1, Ultrix, or HP/UX that do not support
the full set of SVR4/XSI Curses terminfo; and outright broken ports like AIX 3.x
that have their own extensions incompatible with SVr4/XSI.
Available subsets
are "SVr1", "Ultrix", "HP", "BSD" and "AIX"; see \fBterminfo\fR(\*n) for details.
.TP
\fB\-r\fR
Force entry resolution (so there are no remaining tc capabilities) even
when doing translation to termcap format.
This may be needed if you are
preparing a termcap file for a termcap library (such as GNU termcap through
version 1.3 or BSD termcap through 4.3BSD) that does not handle multiple
tc capabilities per entry.
.TP
\fB\-s\fR
Summarize the compile by showing the directory into which entries
are written, and the number of entries which are compiled.
.TP
\fB\-T\fR
eliminates size-restrictions on the generated text.
This is mainly useful for testing and analysis, since the compiled
descriptions are limited (e.g., 1023 for termcap, 4096 for terminfo).
.TP
\fB\-t\fR
tells \fBtic\fP to discard commented-out capabilities.
Normally when translating from terminfo to termcap,
untranslatable capabilities are commented-out.
.TP 5
\fB\-U\fR
tells \fBtic\fP to not post-process the data after parsing the source file.
Normally, it infers data which is commonly missing in older terminfo data,
or in termcaps.
.TP
\fB\-V\fR
reports the version of ncurses which was used in this program, and exits.
.TP
\fB\-v\fR\fIn\fR
specifies that (verbose) output be written to standard error trace
information showing \fBtic\fR's progress.
The optional parameter \fIn\fR is a number from 1 to 10, inclusive,
indicating the desired level of detail of information.
If \fIn\fR is omitted, the default level is 1.
If \fIn\fR is specified and greater than 1, the level of
detail is increased.
.TP
\fB\-w\fR\fIn\fR
specifies the width of the output.
The parameter is optional.
If it is omitted, it defaults to 60.
.TP
\fB\-x\fR
Treat unknown capabilities as user-defined.
That is, if you supply a capability name which \fBtic\fP does not recognize,
it will infer its type (boolean, number or string) from the syntax and
make an extended table entry for that.
User-defined capability strings
whose name begins with ``k'' are treated as function keys.
.TP
\fIfile\fR
contains one or more \fBterminfo\fR terminal descriptions in source
format [see \fBterminfo\fR(\*n)].
Each description in the file
describes the capabilities of a particular terminal.
.PP
The debug flag levels are as follows:
.TP
1
Names of files created and linked
.TP
2
Information related to the ``use'' facility
.TP
3
Statistics from the hashing algorithm
.TP
5
String-table memory allocations
.TP
7
Entries into the string-table
.TP
8
List of tokens encountered by scanner
.TP
9
All values computed in construction of the hash table
.LP
If the debug level \fIn\fR is not given, it is taken to be one.
.PP
All but one of the capabilities recognized by \fBtic\fR are documented
in \fBterminfo\fR(\*n).
The exception is the \fBuse\fR capability.
.PP
When a \fBuse\fR=\fIentry\fR\-\fIname\fR field is discovered in a
terminal entry currently being compiled, \fBtic\fR reads in the binary
from \fB\*d\fR to complete the entry.
(Entries created from
\fIfile\fR will be used first.
If the environment variable
\fBTERMINFO\fR is set, that directory is searched instead of
\fB\*d\fR.)  \fBtic\fR duplicates the capabilities in
\fIentry\fR\-\fIname\fR for the current entry, with the exception of
those capabilities that explicitly are defined in the current entry.
.PP
When an entry, e.g., \fBentry_name_1\fR, contains a
\fBuse=\fR\fIentry\fR_\fIname\fR_\fI2\fR field, any canceled
capabilities in \fIentry\fR_\fIname\fR_\fI2\fR must also appear in
\fBentry_name_1\fR before \fBuse=\fR for these capabilities to be
canceled in \fBentry_name_1\fR.
.PP
If the environment variable \fBTERMINFO\fR is set, the compiled
results are placed there instead of \fB\*d\fR.
.PP
Total compiled entries cannot exceed 4096 bytes.
The name field cannot
exceed 512 bytes.
Terminal names exceeding the maximum alias length
(32 characters on systems with long filenames, 14 characters otherwise)
will be truncated to the maximum alias length and a warning message will be printed.
.SH COMPATIBILITY
There is some evidence that historic \fBtic\fR implementations treated
description fields with no whitespace in them as additional aliases or
short names.
This \fBtic\fR does not do that, but it does warn when
description fields may be treated that way and check them for dangerous
characters.
.SH EXTENSIONS
Unlike the stock SVr4 \fBtic\fR command, this implementation can actually
compile termcap sources.
In fact, entries in terminfo and termcap syntax can
be mixed in a single source file.
See \fBterminfo\fR(\*n) for the list of
termcap names taken to be equivalent to terminfo names.
.PP
The SVr4 manual pages are not clear on the resolution rules for \fBuse\fR
capabilities.
This implementation of \fBtic\fR will find \fBuse\fR targets anywhere
in the source file, or anywhere in the file tree rooted at \fBTERMINFO\fR (if
\fBTERMINFO\fR is defined), or in the user's \fI$HOME/.terminfo\fR directory
(if it exists), or (finally) anywhere in the system's file tree of
compiled entries.
.PP
The error messages from this \fBtic\fR have the same format as GNU C
error messages, and can be parsed by GNU Emacs's compile facility.
.PP
The
\fB\-C\fR,
\fB\-G\fR,
\fB\-I\fR,
\fB\-N\fR,
\fB\-R\fR,
\fB\-T\fR,
\fB\-V\fR,
\fB\-a\fR,
\fB\-e\fR,
\fB\-f\fR,
\fB\-g\fR,
\fB\-o\fR,
\fB\-r\fR,
\fB\-s\fR,
\fB\-t\fR and
\fB\-x\fR
options
are not supported under SVr4.
The SVr4 \fB\-c\fR mode does not report bad use links.
.PP
System V does not compile entries to or read entries from your
\fI$HOME/.terminfo\fR directory unless TERMINFO is explicitly set to it.
.SH FILES
.TP 5
\fB\*d/?/*\fR
Compiled terminal description database.
.SH SEE ALSO
\fB@INFOCMP@\fR(1M),
\fB@CAPTOINFO@\fR(1M),
\fB@INFOTOCAP@\fR(1M),
\fB@TOE@\fR(1M),
\fBcurses\fR(3X),
\fBterminfo\fR(\*n).
.PP
This describes \fBncurses\fR
version @NCURSES_MAJOR@.@NCURSES_MINOR@ (patch @NCURSES_PATCH@).
.SH AUTHOR
Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>
and
.br
Thomas E. Dickey <dickey@invisible-island.net>
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