+'\" t
.\"***************************************************************************
-.\" Copyright 2018-2020,2021 Thomas E. Dickey *
+.\" Copyright 2018-2021,2023 Thomas E. Dickey *
.\" Copyright 1998-2016,2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc. *
.\" *
.\" Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a *
.\" authorization. *
.\"***************************************************************************
.\"
-.\" $Id: term.5,v 1.43 2021/12/25 21:28:59 tom Exp $
-.TH term 5
-.ie \n(.g .ds `` \(lq
-.el .ds `` ``
-.ie \n(.g .ds '' \(rq
-.el .ds '' ''
-.de NS
-.ie n .sp
-.el .sp .5
-.ie n .in +4
-.el .in +2
-.nf
-.ft C \" Courier
-..
-.de NE
-.fi
-.ft R
-.ie n .in -4
-.el .in -2
-..
+.\" $Id: term.5,v 1.65 2023/11/25 22:58:12 tom Exp $
+.TH term 5 2023-11-25 "ncurses 6.4" "File formats"
+.ie \n(.g \{\
+.ds `` \(lq
+.ds '' \(rq
+.ds ' \(aq
+.ds ^ \(ha
+.\}
+.el \{\
+.ie t .ds `` ``
+.el .ds `` ""
+.ie t .ds '' ''
+.el .ds '' ""
+.ds ' '
+.ds ^ ^
+.\}
+.ie n .ds CW R
+.el \{
+.ie \n(.g .ds CW CR
+.el .ds CW CW
+.\}
+.
.de bP
.ie n .IP \(bu 4
.el .IP \(bu 2
..
-.ds n 5
+.
.ds d @TERMINFO@
.SH NAME
-term \- format of compiled term file.
+term \-
+compiled \fIterminfo\fR terminal description
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B term
.SH DESCRIPTION
.TP 5
.B directory tree
A two-level scheme is used to avoid a linear search
-of a huge \s-1UNIX\s+1 system directory: \fB\*d/c/name\fP where
+of a huge Unix system directory: \fB\*d/c/name\fP where
.I name
is the name of the terminal, and
.I c
It contains all of the values of string capabilities referenced in
the \fIstrings\fP section.
Each string is null-terminated.
-Special characters in ^X or \ec notation are stored in their
+Special characters in \*^X or \ec notation are stored in their
interpreted form, not the printing representation.
Padding information $<nn> and parameter information %x are
stored intact in uninterpreted form.
.SS EXTENDED STORAGE FORMAT
The previous section describes the conventional terminfo binary format.
With some minor variations of the offsets (see PORTABILITY),
-the same binary format is used in all modern UNIX systems.
+the same binary format is used in all modern Unix systems.
Each system uses a predefined set of boolean, number or string capabilities.
.PP
The \fBncurses\fP libraries and applications support
the extended capabilities in order, e.g., booleans, then numbers and
finally strings.
.PP
+By storing terminal descriptions in this way,
+\fBncurses\fP is able to provide a database useful with legacy applications,
+as well as providing data for applications which need more than the
+predefined capabilities.
+See \fBuser_caps\fP(5) for an overview
+of the way \fBncurses\fP uses this extended information.
+.PP
Applications which manipulate terminal data can use the definitions
described in \fBterm_variables\fP(3X) which associate the long capability
names with members of a \fBTERMTYPE\fP structure.
.
.SS EXTENDED NUMBER FORMAT
-.PP
On occasion, 16-bit signed integers are not large enough.
With \fBncurses\fP 6.1, a new format was introduced by making a few changes
to the legacy format:
However, that cannot provide callers with the extended numbers.
The library uses a similar but hidden data structure \fBTERMTYPE2\fP
to provide data for the terminfo functions.
+.SH FILES
+.TP
+.I \*d
+compiled terminal description database
.SH PORTABILITY
.SS setupterm
-.PP
Note that it is possible for
.B setupterm
to expect a different set of capabilities
Also, new capabilities must always be added at the end of the lists
of boolean, number, and string capabilities.
.SS Binary format
-.PP
X/Open Curses does not specify a format for the terminfo database.
-UNIX System V curses used a directory-tree of binary files,
+System V curses used a directory-tree of binary files,
one per terminal description.
.PP
Despite the consistent use of little-endian for numbers and the otherwise
self-describing format, it is not wise to count on portability of binary
-terminfo entries between commercial UNIX versions.
+terminfo entries between commercial Unix versions.
The problem is that there
are at least three versions of terminfo (under HP\-UX, AIX, and OSF/1) which
diverged from System V terminfo after SVr1, and have added extension
capabilities to the string table that (in the binary format) collide with
System V and XSI Curses extensions.
-See \fBterminfo\fP(\*n) for detailed
+See \fBterminfo\fP(5) for detailed
discussion of terminfo source compatibility issues.
.PP
This implementation is by default compatible with the binary
can be matched by building ncurses
with different configuration options.
.SS Magic codes
-.PP
The magic number in a binary terminfo file is the first 16-bits (two bytes).
Besides making it more reliable for the library to check that a file
is terminfo,
This implementation uses 01036 as a continuation of that sequence,
but with a different high-order byte to avoid confusion.
.SS The TERMTYPE structure
-.PP
Direct access to the \fBTERMTYPE\fP structure is provided for legacy
applications.
Portable applications should use the \fBtigetflag\fP and related functions
described in \fBcurs_terminfo\fP(3X) for reading terminal capabilities.
.SS Mixed-case terminal names
-.PP
A small number of terminal descriptions use uppercase characters in
their names.
If the underlying filesystem ignores the difference between
\fBncurses\fP represents the \*(``first character\*(''
of the terminal name used as
the intermediate level of a directory tree in (two-character) hexadecimal form.
-.SH EXAMPLE
+.SS Limits
+\fBncurses\fP stores compiled terminal descriptions
+in three related formats,
+described in the sections
+.bP
+\fBLEGACY STORAGE FORMAT\fP, and
+.bP
+\fBEXTENDED STORAGE FORMAT\fP, and
+.bP
+\fBEXTENDED NUMBER FORMAT\fP.
+.PP
+The legacy storage format and the extended number format differ by
+the types of numeric capability which they can store
+(i.e., 16-bit versus 32-bit integers).
+The extended storage format introduced by ncurses 5.0 adds data to
+either of these formats.
+.PP
+Some limitations apply:
+.bP
+total compiled entries cannot exceed 4096 bytes in the legacy format.
+.bP
+total compiled entries cannot exceed 32768 bytes in the extended format.
+.bP
+the name field cannot exceed 128 bytes.
+.PP
+Compiled entries are limited to 32768 bytes because offsets into the
+\fIstrings table\fP use two-byte integers.
+The legacy format could have supported 32768-byte entries,
+but was limited to a virtual memory page's 4096 bytes.
+.SH EXAMPLES
As an example, here is a description for the Lear-Siegler
ADM\-3, a popular though rather stupid early terminal:
-.NS
+.PP
+.RS 4
+.EX
adm3a|lsi adm3a,
am,
cols#80, lines#24,
- bel=^G, clear=\032$<1>, cr=^M, cub1=^H, cud1=^J,
- cuf1=^L, cup=\\E=%p1%{32}%+%c%p2%{32}%+%c, cuu1=^K,
- home=^^, ind=^J,
-.NS
+ bel=\*^G, clear=\e032$<1>, cr=\*^M, cub1=\*^H, cud1=\*^J,
+ cuf1=\*^L, cup=\eE=%p1%{32}%+%c%p2%{32}%+%c, cuu1=\*^K,
+ home=\*^\*^, ind=\*^J,
+.EE
+.RE
.PP
and a hexadecimal dump of the compiled terminal description:
-.NS
-.ft CW
-\s-20000 1a 01 10 00 02 00 03 00 82 00 31 00 61 64 6d 33 ........ ..1.adm3
+.PP
+.ie n .in -2n
+.el .in +4n
+.TS
+lp-1f(\*(CW).
+0000 1a 01 10 00 02 00 03 00 82 00 31 00 61 64 6d 33 ........ ..1.adm3
0010 61 7c 6c 73 69 20 61 64 6d 33 61 00 00 01 50 00 a|lsi ad m3a...P.
0020 ff ff 18 00 ff ff 00 00 02 00 ff ff ff ff 04 00 ........ ........
-0030 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff 0a 00 25 00 27 00 ff ff ........ ..%.'...
-0040 29 00 ff ff ff ff 2b 00 ff ff 2d 00 ff ff ff ff ).....+. ..-.....
+0030 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff 0a 00 25 00 27 00 ff ff ........ ..%.\*'...
+0040 29 00 ff ff ff ff 2b 00 ff ff 2d 00 ff ff ff ff ).....+. ..\-.....
0050 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........
0060 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........
0070 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........
0120 ff ff ff ff ff ff 2f 00 07 00 0d 00 1a 24 3c 31 ....../. .....$<1
0130 3e 00 1b 3d 25 70 31 25 7b 33 32 7d 25 2b 25 63 >..=%p1% {32}%+%c
0140 25 70 32 25 7b 33 32 7d 25 2b 25 63 00 0a 00 1e %p2%{32} %+%c....
-0150 00 08 00 0c 00 0b 00 0a 00 ........ .\s+2
-.ft R
-.NE
-.sp
-.SH LIMITS
-Some limitations:
-.bP
-total compiled entries cannot exceed 4096 bytes in the legacy format.
-.bP
-total compiled entries cannot exceed 32768 bytes in the extended format.
-.bP
-the name field cannot exceed 128 bytes.
-.PP
-Compiled entries are limited to 32768 bytes because offsets into the
-\fIstrings table\fP use two-byte integers.
-The legacy format could have supported 32768-byte entries,
-but was limited a virtual memory page's 4096 bytes.
-.SH FILES
-\*d/*/* compiled terminal capability database
-.SH SEE ALSO
-\fBcurses\fP(3X), \fBterminfo\fP(\*n).
+0150 00 08 00 0c 00 0b 00 0a 00 ........ .
+.TE
+.in
.SH AUTHORS
Thomas E. Dickey
.br
Eric S. Raymond
.br
documented legacy terminfo format, e.g., from \fIpcurses\fP.
+.SH SEE ALSO
+\fB\%curses\fP(3X),
+\fB\%curs_terminfo\fP(3X),
+\fB\%terminfo\fP(5),
+\fB\%user_caps\fP(5)
projects / ncurses.git / blobdiff