.\" authorization. *
.\"***************************************************************************
.\"
-.\" $Id: tic.1m,v 1.69 2019/05/18 22:48:40 tom Exp $
+.\" $Id: tic.1m,v 1.74 2019/07/20 17:57:09 tom Exp $
.TH @TIC@ 1M ""
.ie \n(.g .ds `` \(lq
.el .ds `` ``
(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
+.SH HISTORY
+.PP
+System V Release 2 provided a \fBtic\fP utility.
+It accepted a single option: \fB\-v\fP (optionally followed by a number).
+According to Ross Ridge's comment in \fImytinfo\fP,
+this version of \fBtic\fP was
+unable to represent cancelled capabilities.
+.PP
+System V Release 3 provided a different \fBtic\fP utility,
+written by Pavel Curtis,
+(originally named \*(``compile\*('' in \fIpcurses\fP).
+This added an option \fB\-c\fP to check the file for
+errors, with the caveat that errors in \*(``use=\*('' links
+would not be reported.
+System V Release 3 documented a few warning messages which
+did not appear in \fIpcurses\fP.
+While the program itself was changed little as development
+continued with System V Release 4,
+the table of capabilities grew from 180 (\fIpcurses\fP) to 464 (Solaris).
+.PP
+In early development of ncurses (1993),
+Zeyd Ben-Halim used the table from \fImytinfo\fP to
+extend the \fIpcurses\fP table to 469 capabilities
+(456 matched SVr4, 8 were only in SVr4, 13 were not in SVr4).
+Of those 13, 11 were ultimately discarded
+(perhaps to match the draft of X/Open Curses).
+The exceptions were
+\fBmemory_lock_above\fP and
+\fBmemory_unlock\fP (see \fBuser_caps\fP(5)).
+.PP
+Eric Raymond incorporated parts of \fImytinfo\fP into ncurses
+to implement the termcap-to-terminfo source conversion,
+and extended that to begin development of
+the corresponding terminfo-to-termcap source conversion,
+Thomas Dickey completed that development over the course of several years.
+.PP
+In 1999, Thomas Dickey added the \fB\-x\fP option
+to support user-defined capabilities.
+.PP
+In 2010, Roy Marples provided a \fBtic\fP program
+and terminfo library for NetBSD.
+This implementation adapts several features from ncurses,
+including \fB@TIC@\fP's \fB\-x\fP option.
+.PP
+The \fB\-c\fP option tells \fB@TIC@\fP to check for problems in the
+terminfo source file.
+Continued development provides additional checks:
+.bP
+\fIpcurses\fP had 8 warnings
+.bP
+ncurses in 1996 had 16 warnings
+.bP
+Solaris (SVr4) curses has 28 warnings
+.bP
+NetBSD tic in 2019 has 19 warnings.
+.bP
+ncurses in 2019 has 96 warnings
+.PP
+The checking done in ncurses' \fB@TIC@\fP helps with the conversion to
+termcap, as well as pointing out errors and inconsistencies.
+It is also used to ensure consistency with the user-defined capabilities.
+There are 527 distinct capabilities in ncurses' terminal database;
+128 of those are user-defined.
+.SH PORTABILITY
+.PP
+X/Open Curses, Issue 7 (2009) provides a brief description of \fBtic\fP.
+It lists one option: \fB\-c\fP.
+The omission of \fB\-v\fP is unexpected.
+The change history states that the description is derived from True64 UNIX.
+According to its manual pages, that system also supported the \fB\-v\fP option.
+.PP
+Shortly after Issue 7 was released, Tru64 was discontinued.
+As of 2019, the surviving implementations of \fBtic\fP
+are SVr4 (AIX, HP-UX and Solaris),
+ncurses
+and NetBSD curses.
+.PP
+The X/Open rationale states that some implementations of \fBtic\fP
+read terminal descriptions from the standard input if the \fIfile\fP
+parameter is omitted.
+None of these implementations do that.
+Further, it comments that some may choose to read from \*(''./terminfo.src\*(''
+but that is obsolescent behavior from SVr2,
+and is not (for example) a documented feature of SVr3.
+.SS COMPATIBILITY
There is some evidence that historic \fB@TIC@\fR implementations treated
description fields with no whitespace in them as additional aliases or
short names.
This \fB@TIC@\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
+.SS EXTENSIONS
Unlike the SVr4 \fB@TIC@\fR command, this implementation can actually
compile termcap sources.
In fact, entries in terminfo and termcap syntax can
\fB\-x\fR
options
are not supported under SVr4.
-The SVr4 \fB\-c\fR mode does not report bad use links.
+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 database unless TERMINFO is explicitly set to it.
projects / ncurses.git / blobdiff