X-Git-Url: http://ncurses.scripts.mit.edu/?p=ncurses.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=doc%2Fhtml%2Fman%2Ftic.1m.html;h=70212a6b10bd768a0f261c0da84ea9cff879c762;hp=3f273d35907d639f80409f5bc12afaf22569aa39;hb=89730563d0a660d4ddd83d28660dc23c6d3f0bed;hpb=0485620c03e69b1b58a6b12e5e45c98415fc7575;ds=sidebyside
diff --git a/doc/html/man/tic.1m.html b/doc/html/man/tic.1m.html
index 3f273d35..70212a6b 100644
--- a/doc/html/man/tic.1m.html
+++ b/doc/html/man/tic.1m.html
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
-
+
tic 1m
-
+
@@ -79,20 +80,19 @@
minfo" leaf, versus a "terminfo.db" file.
The results are normally placed in the system terminfo database
- /usr/local/ncurses/lib/terminfo. The compiled terminal description can
- be placed in a different terminfo database. There are two ways to
- achieve this:
+ /usr/share/terminfo. The compiled terminal description can be placed
+ in a different terminfo database. There are two ways to achieve this:
- o First, you may override the system default either by using the -o
- option, or by setting the variable TERMINFO in your shell environ-
+ o First, you may override the system default either by using the -o
+ option, or by setting the variable TERMINFO in your shell environ-
ment to a valid database location.
- o Secondly, if tic cannot write in /usr/local/ncurses/lib/terminfo or
- the location specified using your TERMINFO variable, it looks for
- the directory $HOME/.terminfo (or hashed database $HOME/.ter-
- minfo.db); if that location exists, the entry is placed there.
+ o Secondly, if tic cannot write in /usr/share/terminfo or the loca-
+ tion specified using your TERMINFO variable, it looks for the
+ directory $HOME/.terminfo (or hashed database $HOME/.terminfo.db);
+ if that location exists, the entry is placed there.
- Libraries that read terminfo entries are expected to check in succes-
+ Libraries that read terminfo entries are expected to check in succes-
sion
o a location specified with the TERMINFO environment variable,
@@ -101,10 +101,19 @@
o directories listed in the TERMINFO_DIRS environment variable,
- o a compiled-in list of directories (/usr/local/ncurses/share/ter-
+ o a compiled-in list of directories (/usr/local/ncurses/share/ter-
minfo:/usr/share/terminfo), and
- o the system terminfo database (/usr/local/ncurses/lib/terminfo).
+ o the system terminfo database (/usr/share/terminfo).
+
+
+
+ This is the same program as infotocap and captoinfo; usually those are
+ linked to, or copied from this program:
+
+ o When invoked as infotocap, tic sets the -I option.
+
+ o When invoked as captoinfo, tic sets the -C option.
@@ -141,7 +150,7 @@
the end of the string will not convert completely.
-c tells tic to only check file for errors, including syntax prob-
- lems and bad use links. If you specify -C (-I) with this
+ lems and bad use-links. If you specify -C (-I) 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, as well as buggy
@@ -285,46 +294,122 @@
-wn specifies the width of the output. The parameter is optional. If
it is omitted, it defaults to 60.
- -x Treat unknown capabilities as user-defined. That is, if you sup-
- ply a capability name which tic 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.
+ -x Treat unknown capabilities as user-defined (see user_caps(5)).
+ That is, if you supply a capability name which tic does not recog-
+ nize, 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 func-
+ tion keys.
- file contains one or more terminfo terminal descriptions in source
- format [see terminfo(5)]. Each description in the file
+ file contains one or more terminfo terminal descriptions in source
+ format [see terminfo(5)]. Each description in the file
describes the capabilities of a particular terminal.
- If file is "-", then the data is read from the standard input.
+ If file is "-", then the data is read from the standard input.
The file parameter may also be the path of a character-device.
- All but one of the capabilities recognized by tic are documented in
+ All but one of the capabilities recognized by tic are documented in
terminfo(5). The exception is the use capability.
When a use=entry-name field is discovered in a terminal entry currently
- being compiled, tic reads in the binary from
- /usr/local/ncurses/lib/terminfo to complete the entry. (Entries cre-
- ated from file will be used first. tic duplicates the capabilities in
- entry-name for the current entry, with the exception of those capabili-
- ties that explicitly are defined in the current entry.
-
- When an entry, e.g., entry_name_1, contains a use=entry_name_2 field,
- any canceled capabilities in entry_name_2 must also appear in
- entry_name_1 before use= for these capabilities to be canceled in
+ being compiled, tic reads in the binary from /usr/share/terminfo to
+ complete the entry. (Entries created from file will be used first.
+ tic duplicates the capabilities in entry-name for the current entry,
+ with the exception of those capabilities that explicitly are defined in
+ the current entry.
+
+ When an entry, e.g., entry_name_1, contains a use=entry_name_2 field,
+ any canceled capabilities in entry_name_2 must also appear in
+ entry_name_1 before use= for these capabilities to be canceled in
entry_name_1.
Total compiled entries cannot exceed 4096 bytes. The name field cannot
- exceed 512 bytes. Terminal names exceeding the maximum alias length
+ 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 truncated to the maximum alias length and a warning message
will be printed.
-
+ System V Release 2 provided a tic utility. It accepted a single
+ option: -v (optionally followed by a number). According to Ross
+ Ridge's comment in mytinfo, this version of tic was unable to represent
+ cancelled capabilities.
+
+ System V Release 3 provided a different tic utility, written by Pavel
+ Curtis, (originally named "compile" in pcurses). This added an option
+ -c 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 warn-
+ ing messages which did not appear in pcurses. While the program itself
+ was changed little as development continued with System V Release 4,
+ the table of capabilities grew from 180 (pcurses) to 464 (Solaris).
+
+ In early development of ncurses (1993), Zeyd Ben-Halim used the table
+ from mytinfo to extend the pcurses 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 memory_lock_above and memory_unlock (see
+ user_caps(5)).
+
+ Eric Raymond incorporated parts of mytinfo 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.
+
+ In 1999, Thomas Dickey added the -x option to support user-defined
+ capabilities.
+
+ In 2010, Roy Marples provided a tic program and terminfo library for
+ NetBSD. That implementation adapts several features from ncurses,
+ including tic's -x option.
+
+ The -c option tells tic to check for problems in the terminfo source
+ file. Continued development provides additional checks:
+
+ opcurses had 8 warnings
+
+ o ncurses in 1996 had 16 warnings
+
+ o Solaris (SVr4) curses has 28 warnings
+
+ o NetBSD tic in 2019 has 19 warnings.
+
+ o ncurses in 2019 has 96 warnings
+
+ The checking done in ncurses' tic 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.
+
+
+
+ X/Open Curses, Issue 7 (2009) provides a brief description of tic. It
+ lists one option: -c. The omission of -v is unexpected. The change
+ history states that the description is derived from True64 UNIX.
+ According to its manual pages, that system also supported the -v
+ option.
+
+ Shortly after Issue 7 was released, Tru64 was discontinued. As of
+ 2019, the surviving implementations of tic are SVr4 (AIX, HP-UX and
+ Solaris), ncurses and NetBSD curses. The SVr4 tic programs all support
+ the -v option. The NetBSD tic program follows X/Open's documentation,
+ omitting the -v option.
+
+ The X/Open rationale states that some implementations of tic read ter-
+ minal descriptions from the standard input if the file parameter is
+ omitted. None of these implementations do that. Further, it comments
+ that some may choose to read from "./terminfo.src" but that is obsoles-
+ cent behavior from SVr2, and is not (for example) a documented feature
+ of SVr3.
+
+
+
There is some evidence that historic tic implementations treated
description fields with no whitespace in them as additional aliases or
short names. This tic does not do that, but it does warn when descrip-
@@ -332,7 +417,7 @@
acters.
-
Unlike the SVr4 tic 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 terminfo(5) for the list of
@@ -348,24 +433,35 @@
The error messages from this tic have the same format as GNU C error
messages, and can be parsed by GNU Emacs's compile facility.
- The -0, -1, -C, -G, -I, -N, -R, -T, -V, -a, -e, -f, -g, -o, -r, -s, -t
- and -x options are not supported under SVr4. The SVr4 -c mode does not
- report bad use links.
+ Aside from -c and -v, options are not portable:
+
+ o Most of tic's options are not supported by SVr4 tic:
+
+ -0-1-C-G-I-N-R-T-V-a-e-f-g-o-r-s-t-x
- System V does not compile entries to or read entries from your
+ o The NetBSD tic supports a few of the ncurses options
+
+ -a-o-x
+
+ and adds -S (a feature which does the same thing as infocmp's -e
+ and -E options).
+
+ The SVr4 -c mode does not report bad "use=" links.
+
+ System V does not compile entries to or read entries from your
$HOME/.terminfo database unless TERMINFO is explicitly set to it.