- valued capabilities for easy encoding of characters there.
- Both <STRONG>\E</STRONG> and <STRONG>\e</STRONG> map to an ESCAPE character, <STRONG>^x</STRONG> maps to a
- control-x for any appropriate x, and the sequences <STRONG>\n</STRONG> <STRONG>\l</STRONG>
- <STRONG>\r</STRONG> <STRONG>\t</STRONG> <STRONG>\b</STRONG> <STRONG>\f</STRONG> <STRONG>\s</STRONG> give a newline, line-feed, return, tab,
- backspace, form-feed, and space. Other escapes include <STRONG>\^</STRONG>
- for <STRONG>^</STRONG>, <STRONG>\\</STRONG> for <STRONG>\</STRONG>, <STRONG>\</STRONG>, for comma, <STRONG>\:</STRONG> for <STRONG>:</STRONG>, and <STRONG>\0</STRONG> for null.
- (<STRONG>\0</STRONG> will produce \200, which does not terminate a string
- but behaves as a null character on most terminals, provid-
- ing CS7 is specified. See <STRONG><A HREF="stty.1.html">stty(1)</A></STRONG>.) Finally, characters
- may be given as three octal digits after a <STRONG>\</STRONG>.
-
- A delay in milliseconds may appear anywhere in a string
- capability, enclosed in $<..> brackets, as in <STRONG>el</STRONG>=\EK$<5>,
- and padding characters are supplied by <EM>tputs</EM> to provide
- this delay. The delay must be a number with at most one
- decimal place of precision; it may be followed by suffixes
- `*' or '/' or both. A `*' indicates that the padding
- required is proportional to the number of lines affected
- by the operation, and the amount given is the per-
- affected-unit padding required. (In the case of insert
- character, the factor is still the number of <EM>lines</EM>
- affected.) Normally, padding is advisory if the device
- has the <STRONG>xon</STRONG> capability; it is used for cost computation
- but does not trigger delays. A `/' suffix indicates that
- the padding is mandatory and forces a delay of the given
- number of milliseconds even on devices for which <STRONG>xon</STRONG> is
- present to indicate flow control.
+ valued capabilities for easy encoding of characters there:
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> Both <STRONG>\E</STRONG> and <STRONG>\e</STRONG> map to an ESCAPE character,
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> <STRONG>^x</STRONG> maps to a control-x for any appropriate <EM>x</EM>, and
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> the sequences
+
+ <STRONG>\n</STRONG>, <STRONG>\l</STRONG>, <STRONG>\r</STRONG>, <STRONG>\t</STRONG>, <STRONG>\b</STRONG>, <STRONG>\f</STRONG>, and <STRONG>\s</STRONG>
+
+ produce
+
+ <EM>newline</EM>, <EM>line-feed</EM>, <EM>return</EM>, <EM>tab</EM>, <EM>backspace</EM>, <EM>form-</EM>
+ <EM>feed</EM>, and <EM>space</EM>,
+
+ respectively.
+
+ X/Open Curses does not say what "appropriate <EM>x</EM>" might be.
+ In practice, that is a printable ASCII graphic character.
+ The special case "^?" is interpreted as DEL (127). In all
+ other cases, the character value is AND'd with 0x1f, map-
+ ping to ASCII control codes in the range 0 through 31.
+
+ Other escapes include
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> <STRONG>\^</STRONG> for <STRONG>^</STRONG>,
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> <STRONG>\\</STRONG> for <STRONG>\</STRONG>,
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> <STRONG>\</STRONG>, for comma,
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> <STRONG>\:</STRONG> for <STRONG>:</STRONG>,
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> and <STRONG>\0</STRONG> for null.
+
+ <STRONG>\0</STRONG> will produce \200, which does not terminate a
+ string but behaves as a null character on most termi-
+ nals, providing CS7 is specified. See <STRONG>stty(1)</STRONG>.
+
+ The reason for this quirk is to maintain binary com-
+ patibility of the compiled terminfo files with other
+ implementations, e.g., the SVr4 systems, which docu-
+ ment this. Compiled terminfo files use null-termi-
+ nated strings, with no lengths. Modifying this would
+ require a new binary format, which would not work with
+ other implementations.
+
+ Finally, characters may be given as three octal digits
+ after a <STRONG>\</STRONG>.
+
+ A delay in milliseconds may appear anywhere in a string
+ capability, enclosed in $<..> brackets, as in <STRONG>el</STRONG>=\EK$<5>,
+ and padding characters are supplied by <STRONG><A HREF="curs_terminfo.3x.html">tputs(3x)</A></STRONG> to pro-
+ vide this delay.
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> The delay must be a number with at most one decimal
+ place of precision; it may be followed by suffixes "*"
+ or "/" or both.
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> A "*" indicates that the padding required is propor-
+ tional to the number of lines affected by the opera-
+ tion, and the amount given is the per-affected-unit
+ padding required. (In the case of insert character,
+ the factor is still the number of <EM>lines</EM> affected.)
+
+ Normally, padding is advisory if the device has the
+ <STRONG>xon</STRONG> capability; it is used for cost computation but
+ does not trigger delays.
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> A "/" suffix indicates that the padding is mandatory
+ and forces a delay of the given number of milliseconds
+ even on devices for which <STRONG>xon</STRONG> is present to indicate
+ flow control.