- The tic command translates a terminfo file from source format into com-
- piled format. The compiled format is necessary for use with the
+ The tic command translates a terminfo file from source format into
+ compiled format. The compiled format is necessary for use with the
library routines in ncurses(3x).
As described in term(5), the database may be either a directory tree
@@ -64,8 +65,8 @@
entry). The tic command writes only one type of entry, depending on
how it was built:
- o For directory trees, the top-level directory, e.g., /usr/share/ter-
- minfo, specifies the location of the database.
+ o For directory trees, the top-level directory, e.g.,
+ /usr/share/terminfo, specifies the location of the database.
o For hashed databases, a filename is needed. If the given file is
not found by that name, but can be found by adding the suffix
@@ -74,134 +75,145 @@
The default name for the hashed database is the same as the default
directory name (only adding a ".db" suffix).
- In either case (directory or hashed database), tic will create the con-
- tainer if it does not exist. For a directory, this would be the "ter-
- minfo" leaf, versus a "terminfo.db" file.
+ In either case (directory or hashed database), tic will create the
+ container if it does not exist. For a directory, this would be the
+ "terminfo" leaf, versus a "terminfo.db" file.
The results are normally placed in the system terminfo database
/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-
- ment to a valid database location.
+ option, or by setting the variable TERMINFO in your shell
+ environment to a valid database location.
- o Secondly, if tic cannot write in /usr/share/terminfo or the loca-
- tion specified using your TERMINFO variable, it looks for the
+ o Secondly, if tic cannot write in /usr/share/terminfo or the
+ location specified using your TERMINFO variable, it looks for the
directory $HOME/.terminfo (or hashed database $HOME/.terminfo.db);
if that location exists, the entry is placed there.
- Libraries that read terminfo entries are expected to check in succes-
- sion
+ Libraries that read terminfo entries are expected to check in
+ succession
- o a location specified with the TERMINFO environment variable,
+ o a location specified with the TERMINFO environment variable,
o$HOME/.terminfo,
- o directories listed in the TERMINFO_DIRS environment variable,
+ o directories listed in the TERMINFO_DIRS environment variable,
- o a compiled-in list of directories (/usr/local/ncurses/share/ter-
- minfo:/usr/share/terminfo), and
+ o a compiled-in list of directories (/usr/share/terminfo), and
o the system terminfo database (/usr/share/terminfo).
+ The FetchingCompiledDescriptions section in the terminfo(5) manual
+ goes into further detail.
+
+
+
+ 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.
+
-
-0 restricts the output to a single line
-1 restricts the output to a single column
- -a tells tic to retain commented-out capabilities rather than dis-
- carding them. Capabilities are commented by prefixing them with
- a period. This sets the -x option, because it treats the com-
- mented-out entries as user-defined names. If the source is
- termcap, accept the 2-character names required by version 6.
+ -a tells tic to retain commented-out capabilities rather than
+ discarding them. Capabilities are commented by prefixing them
+ with a period. This sets the -x 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.
- -C Force source translation to termcap format. Note: this differs
- from the -C option of infocmp(1m) in that it does not merely
+ -C Force source translation to termcap format. Note: this differs
+ from the -C option of infocmp(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. The actual format used incorporates
- some improvements for escaped characters from terminfo format.
+ to termcap format. Capabilities that are not translatable are
+ left in the entry under their terminfo names but commented out
+ with two preceding dots. The actual format used incorporates
+ some improvements for escaped characters from terminfo format.
For a stricter BSD-compatible translation, add the -K option.
- If this is combined with -c, tic makes additional checks to
- report cases where the terminfo values do not have an exact
+ If this is combined with -c, tic makes additional checks to
+ report cases where the terminfo values do not have an exact
equivalent in termcap form. For example:
- osgr usually will not convert, because termcap lacks the
- ability to work with more than two parameters, and because
- termcap lacks many of the arithmetic/logical operators used
+ osgr usually will not convert, because termcap lacks the
+ ability to work with more than two parameters, and because
+ termcap lacks many of the arithmetic/logical operators used
in terminfo.
- o capabilities with more than one delay or with delays before
+ o capabilities with more than one delay or with delays before
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
- option, the code will print warnings about entries which, after
- use resolution, are more than 1023 (4096) bytes long. Due to a
+ -c tells tic to only check file for errors, including syntax
+ problems 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
- checking for the buffer length (and a documented limit in ter-
- minfo), these entries may cause core dumps with other implemen-
- tations.
+ checking for the buffer length (and a documented limit in
+ terminfo), these entries may cause core dumps with other
+ implementations.
- tic checks string capabilities to ensure that those with parame-
- ters will be valid expressions. It does this check only for the
- predefined string capabilities; those which are defined with the
- -x option are ignored.
+ tic checks string capabilities to ensure that those with
+ parameters will be valid expressions. It does this check only
+ for the predefined string capabilities; those which are defined
+ with the -x option are ignored.
- -D tells tic to print the database locations that it knows about,
+ -D tells tic to print the database locations that it knows about,
and exit. The first location shown is the one to which it would
- write compiled terminal descriptions. If tic is not able to
- find a writable database location according to the rules summa-
- rized above, it will print a diagnostic and exit with an error
- rather than printing a list of database locations.
-
- -enames
- 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
+ write compiled terminal descriptions. If tic is not able to
+ find a writable database location according to the rules
+ summarized above, it will print a diagnostic and exit with an
+ error rather than printing a list of database locations.
+
+ -elist
+ Limit writes and translations to the comma-separated list of
+ terminal types. 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 com-
- piled, this option may require -I or -C.)
+ 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 -I or -C.)
- -f Display complex terminfo strings which contain
+ -f Display complex terminfo strings which contain
if/then/else/endif expressions indented for readability.
- -G Display constant literals in decimal form rather than their
+ -G Display constant literals in decimal form rather than their
character equivalents.
- -g Display constant character literals in quoted form rather than
+ -g Display constant character literals in quoted form rather than
their decimal equivalents.
-I Force source translation to terminfo format.
- -K Suppress some longstanding ncurses extensions to termcap format,
+ -K Suppress some longstanding ncurses extensions to termcap format,
e.g., "\s" for space.
- -L Force source translation to terminfo format using the long C
+ -L Force source translation to terminfo format using the long C
variable names listed in <term.h>
-N Disable smart defaults. Normally, when translating from termcap
- to terminfo, the compiler makes a number of assumptions about
- the defaults of string capabilities reset1_string, car-
- riage_return, cursor_left, cursor_down, scroll_forward, tab,
+ to terminfo, the compiler makes a number of assumptions about
+ the defaults of string capabilities reset1_string,
+ carriage_return, cursor_left, cursor_down, scroll_forward, tab,
newline, key_backspace, key_left, and key_down, then attempts to
- use obsolete termcap capabilities to deduce correct values. It
+ use obsolete termcap capabilities to deduce correct values. It
also normally suppresses output of obsolete termcap capabilities
- such as bs. This option forces a more literal translation that
+ such as bs. This option forces a more literal translation that
also preserves the obsolete capabilities.
- -odir Write compiled entries to given database location. Overrides
- the TERMINFO environment variable.
+ -odir Write compiled entries to given database location. Overrides
+ the TERMINFO environment variable.
- -Qn Rather than show source in terminfo (text) format, print the
- compiled (binary) format in hexadecimal or base64 form, depend-
- ing on the option's value:
+ -Qn Rather than show source in terminfo (text) format, print the
+ compiled (binary) format in hexadecimal or base64 form,
+ depending on the option's value:
1 hexadecimal
@@ -213,85 +225,97 @@
source.
-Rsubset
- 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 ter-
- minfo; 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 terminfo(5) for
- details.
-
- -r Force entry resolution (so there are no remaining tc capabili-
- ties) 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.
-
- -s Summarize the compile by showing the database location into
- which entries are written, and the number of entries which are
+ 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 terminfo(5) for details.
+
+ -r 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.
+
+ -s Summarize the compile by showing the database location into
+ which entries are written, and the number of entries which are
compiled.
- -T 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 ter-
- minfo).
+ -T 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).
- -t tells tic to discard commented-out capabilities. Normally when
- translating from terminfo to termcap, untranslatable capabili-
- ties are commented-out.
+ -t tells tic to discard commented-out capabilities. Normally when
+ translating from terminfo to termcap, untranslatable
+ capabilities are commented-out.
- -U tells tic to not post-process the data after parsing the source
+ -U tells tic 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.
- -V reports the version of ncurses which was used in this program, and
+ -V reports the version of ncurses which was used in this program, and
exits.
-vn specifies that (verbose) output be written to standard error trace
information showing tic's progress.
- The optional parameter n is a number from 1 to 10, inclusive,
- indicating the desired level of detail of information. If ncurses
- is built without tracing support, the optional parameter is
- ignored. If n is omitted, the default level is 1. If n is speci-
- fied and greater than 1, the level of detail is increased.
+ The optional parameter n is a number from 1 to 9, inclusive,
+ indicating the desired level of detail of information.
+
+ o If ncurses is built without tracing support, the optional
+ parameter is ignored.
+
+ o If n is omitted, the default level is 1.
+
+ o If n is specified and greater than 1, the level of detail is
+ increased, and the output is written (with tracing
+ information) to the "trace" file.
The debug flag levels are as follows:
- 1 Names of files created and linked
+ 1 Names of files created and linked
- 2 Information related to the "use" facility
+ 2 Information related to the "use" facility
- 3 Statistics from the hashing algorithm
+ 3 Statistics from the hashing algorithm
- 5 String-table memory allocations
+ 4 Details of extended capabilities
- 7 Entries into the string-table
+ 5 (unused)
- 8 List of tokens encountered by scanner
+ 6 (unused)
- 9 All values computed in construction of the hash table
+ 7 Entries into the string-table
- If the debug level n is not given, it is taken to be one.
+ 8 List of tokens encountered by scanner
- -W By itself, the -w option will not force long strings to be
+ 9 All values computed in construction of the hash table
+
+ -W By itself, the -w option will not force long strings to be
wrapped. Use the -W option to do this.
- If you specify both -f and -W options, the latter is ignored when
+ If you specify both -f and -W options, the latter is ignored when
-f has already split the line.
-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
+ 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.
-
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.
@@ -300,7 +324,7 @@
The file parameter may also be the path of a character-device.
-
All but one of the capabilities recognized by tic are documented in
terminfo(5). The exception is the use capability.
@@ -316,64 +340,149 @@
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
- (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.
+ Total compiled entries cannot exceed 4096 bytes in the legacy storage
+ format, or 32768 using the extended number format. 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.
-
- 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-
- tion fields may be treated that way and check them for dangerous char-
- acters.
+
+ 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
+ description fields may be treated that way and check them for dangerous
+ characters.
- 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
+ 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
termcap names taken to be equivalent to terminfo names.
- The SVr4 manual pages are not clear on the resolution rules for use
- capabilities. This implementation of tic will find use targets any-
- where in the source file, or anywhere in the file tree rooted at TER-
- MINFO (if TERMINFO is defined), or in the user's $HOME/.terminfo data-
- base (if it exists), or (finally) anywhere in the system's file tree of
- compiled entries.
+ The SVr4 manual pages are not clear on the resolution rules for use
+ capabilities. This implementation of tic will find use targets
+ anywhere in the source file, or anywhere in the file tree rooted at
+ TERMINFO (if TERMINFO is defined), or in the user's $HOME/.terminfo
+ database (if it exists), or (finally) anywhere in the system's file
+ tree of compiled entries.
- The error messages from this tic have the same format as GNU C error
+ 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
+
+ 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.
+ $HOME/.terminfo database unless TERMINFO is explicitly set to it.
-
+ 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 Tru64. 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.
-
- infocmp(1m), captoinfo(1m), infotocap(1m), toe(1m), curses(3x),
- term(5). terminfo(5).
+ The X/Open rationale states that some implementations of tic read
+ terminal 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
+ obsolescent behavior from SVr2, and is not (for example) a documented
+ feature of SVr3.
- This describes ncurses version 6.0 (patch 20171007).
+
+ 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
+ warning 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
+
+ oncurses in 1996 had 16 warnings
+
+ o Solaris (SVr4) curses has 28 warnings
+
+ o NetBSD tic in 2019 has 19 warnings.
+
+ oncurses 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.
+
+
+