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29 * @Id: term.5,v 1.32 2019/01/12 23:11:08 tom Exp @
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41 <H1 class="no-header">term 5</H1>
43 <STRONG><A HREF="term.5.html">term(5)</A></STRONG> File Formats Manual <STRONG><A HREF="term.5.html">term(5)</A></STRONG>
48 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-NAME">NAME</a></H2><PRE>
49 term - format of compiled term file.
52 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a></H2><PRE>
56 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a></H2><PRE>
58 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-STORAGE-LOCATION">STORAGE LOCATION</a></H3><PRE>
59 Compiled terminfo descriptions are placed under the directory
60 <STRONG>/usr/share/terminfo</STRONG>. Two configurations are supported (when building
61 the <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> libraries):
63 <STRONG>directory</STRONG> <STRONG>tree</STRONG>
64 A two-level scheme is used to avoid a linear search of a huge UNIX
65 system directory: <STRONG>/usr/share/terminfo/c/name</STRONG> where <EM>name</EM> is the
66 name of the terminal, and <EM>c</EM> is the first character of <EM>name</EM>. Thus,
67 <EM>act4</EM> can be found in the file <STRONG>/usr/share/terminfo/a/act4</STRONG>. Syn-
68 onyms for the same terminal are implemented by multiple links to
69 the same compiled file.
71 <STRONG>hashed</STRONG> <STRONG>database</STRONG>
72 Using Berkeley database, two types of records are stored: the ter-
73 minfo data in the same format as stored in a directory tree with
74 the terminfo's primary name as a key, and records containing only
75 aliases pointing to the primary name.
77 If built to write hashed databases, <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> can still read ter-
78 minfo databases organized as a directory tree, but cannot write
79 entries into the directory tree. It can write (or rewrite)
80 entries in the hashed database.
82 <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> distinguishes the two cases in the TERMINFO and TER-
83 MINFO_DIRS environment variable by assuming a directory tree for
84 entries that correspond to an existing directory, and hashed data-
88 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-LEGACY-STORAGE-FORMAT">LEGACY STORAGE FORMAT</a></H3><PRE>
89 The format has been chosen so that it will be the same on all hardware.
90 An 8 or more bit byte is assumed, but no assumptions about byte order-
91 ing or sign extension are made.
93 The compiled file is created with the <STRONG>tic</STRONG> program, and read by the rou-
94 tine <STRONG><A HREF="curs_terminfo.3x.html">setupterm(3x)</A></STRONG>. The file is divided into six parts: the header,
95 terminal names, boolean flags, numbers, strings, and string table.
97 The header section begins the file. This section contains six short
98 integers in the format described below. These integers are
100 (1) the magic number (octal 0432);
102 (2) the size, in bytes, of the names section;
104 (3) the number of bytes in the boolean section;
106 (4) the number of short integers in the numbers section;
108 (5) the number of offsets (short integers) in the strings section;
110 (6) the size, in bytes, of the string table.
112 Short integers are stored in two 8-bit bytes. The first byte contains
113 the least significant 8 bits of the value, and the second byte contains
114 the most significant 8 bits. (Thus, the value represented is 256*sec-
115 ond+first.) The value -1 is represented by the two bytes 0377, 0377;
116 other negative values are illegal. This value generally means that the
117 corresponding capability is missing from this terminal. Note that this
118 format corresponds to the hardware of the VAX and PDP-11 (that is, lit-
119 tle-endian machines). Machines where this does not correspond to the
120 hardware must read the integers as two bytes and compute the little-
123 The terminal names section comes next. It contains the first line of
124 the terminfo description, listing the various names for the terminal,
125 separated by the "|" character. The section is terminated with an
128 The boolean flags have one byte for each flag. This byte is either 0
129 or 1 as the flag is present or absent. The capabilities are in the
130 same order as the file <term.h>.
132 Between the boolean section and the number section, a null byte will be
133 inserted, if necessary, to ensure that the number section begins on an
134 even byte (this is a relic of the PDP-11's word-addressed architecture,
135 originally designed in to avoid IOT traps induced by addressing a word
136 on an odd byte boundary). All short integers are aligned on a short
139 The numbers section is similar to the flags section. Each capability
140 takes up two bytes, and is stored as a little-endian short integer. If
141 the value represented is -1, the capability is taken to be missing.
143 The strings section is also similar. Each capability is stored as a
144 short integer, in the format above. A value of -1 means the capability
145 is missing. Otherwise, the value is taken as an offset from the begin-
146 ning of the string table. Special characters in ^X or \c notation are
147 stored in their interpreted form, not the printing representation.
148 Padding information $<nn> and parameter information %x are stored
149 intact in uninterpreted form.
151 The final section is the string table. It contains all the values of
152 string capabilities referenced in the string section. Each string is
156 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-EXTENDED-STORAGE-FORMAT">EXTENDED STORAGE FORMAT</a></H3><PRE>
157 The previous section describes the conventional terminfo binary format.
158 With some minor variations of the offsets (see PORTABILITY), the same
159 binary format is used in all modern UNIX systems. Each system uses a
160 predefined set of boolean, number or string capabilities.
162 The <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> libraries and applications support extended terminfo binary
163 format, allowing users to define capabilities which are loaded at run-
164 time. This extension is made possible by using the fact that the other
165 implementations stop reading the terminfo data when they have reached
166 the end of the size given in the header. <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> checks the size, and
167 if it exceeds that due to the predefined data, continues to parse
168 according to its own scheme.
170 First, it reads the extended header (5 short integers):
172 (1) count of extended boolean capabilities
174 (2) count of extended numeric capabilities
176 (3) count of extended string capabilities
178 (4) count of the items in extended string table
180 (5) size of the extended string table in bytes
182 The count- and size-values for the extended string table include the
183 extended capability <EM>names</EM> as well as extended capability <EM>values</EM>.
185 Using the counts and sizes, <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> allocates arrays and reads data for
186 the extended capabilities in the same order as the header information.
188 The extended string table contains values for string capabilities.
189 After the end of these values, it contains the names for each of the
190 extended capabilities in order, e.g., booleans, then numbers and
193 Applications which manipulate terminal data can use the definitions
194 described in <STRONG><A HREF="term_variables.3x.html">term_variables(3x)</A></STRONG> which associate the long capability
195 names with members of a <STRONG>TERMTYPE</STRONG> structure.
198 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-EXTENDED-NUMBER-FORMAT">EXTENDED NUMBER FORMAT</a></H3><PRE>
199 On occasion, 16-bit signed integers are not large enough. With <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG>
200 6.1, a new format was introduced by making a few changes to the legacy
203 <STRONG>o</STRONG> a different magic number (octal 01036)
205 <STRONG>o</STRONG> changing the type for the <EM>number</EM> array from signed 16-bit integers
206 to signed 32-bit integers.
208 To maintain compatibility, the library presents the same data struc-
209 tures to direct users of the <STRONG>TERMTYPE</STRONG> structure as in previous formats.
210 However, that cannot provide callers with the extended numbers. The
211 library uses a similar but hidden data structure <STRONG>TERMTYPE2</STRONG> to provide
212 data for the terminfo functions.
215 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-PORTABILITY">PORTABILITY</a></H2><PRE>
217 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-setupterm">setupterm</a></H3><PRE>
218 Note that it is possible for <STRONG>setupterm</STRONG> to expect a different set of
219 capabilities than are actually present in the file. Either the data-
220 base may have been updated since <STRONG>setupterm</STRONG> has been recompiled (result-
221 ing in extra unrecognized entries in the file) or the program may have
222 been recompiled more recently than the database was updated (resulting
223 in missing entries). The routine <STRONG>setupterm</STRONG> must be prepared for both
224 possibilities - this is why the numbers and sizes are included. Also,
225 new capabilities must always be added at the end of the lists of bool-
226 ean, number, and string capabilities.
229 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-Binary-format">Binary format</a></H3><PRE>
230 X/Open Curses does not specify a format for the terminfo database.
231 UNIX System V curses used a directory-tree of binary files, one per
232 terminal description.
234 Despite the consistent use of little-endian for numbers and the other-
235 wise self-describing format, it is not wise to count on portability of
236 binary terminfo entries between commercial UNIX versions. The problem
237 is that there are at least three versions of terminfo (under HP-UX,
238 AIX, and OSF/1) which diverged from System V terminfo after SVr1, and
239 have added extension capabilities to the string table that (in the
240 binary format) collide with System V and XSI Curses extensions. See
241 <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG> for detailed discussion of terminfo source compatibility
244 This implementation is by default compatible with the binary terminfo
245 format used by Solaris curses, except in a few less-used details where
246 it was found that the latter did not match X/Open Curses. The format
247 used by the other Unix versions can be matched by building ncurses with
248 different configuration options.
251 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-Magic-codes">Magic codes</a></H3><PRE>
252 The magic number in a binary terminfo file is the first 16-bits (two
253 bytes). Besides making it more reliable for the library to check that
254 a file is terminfo, utilities such as <STRONG>file</STRONG> also use that to tell what
255 the file-format is. System V defined more than one magic number, with
256 0433, 0435 as screen-dumps (see <STRONG><A HREF="scr_dump.5.html">scr_dump(5)</A></STRONG>). This implementation uses
257 01036 as a continuation of that sequence, but with a different high-
258 order byte to avoid confusion.
261 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-The-TERMTYPE-structure">The TERMTYPE structure</a></H3><PRE>
262 Direct access to the <STRONG>TERMTYPE</STRONG> structure is provided for legacy applica-
263 tions. Portable applications should use the <STRONG>tigetflag</STRONG> and related
264 functions described in <STRONG><A HREF="curs_terminfo.3x.html">curs_terminfo(3x)</A></STRONG> for reading terminal capabili-
268 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-Mixed-case-terminal-names">Mixed-case terminal names</a></H3><PRE>
269 A small number of terminal descriptions use uppercase characters in
270 their names. If the underlying filesystem ignores the difference
271 between uppercase and lowercase, <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> represents the "first charac-
272 ter" of the terminal name used as the intermediate level of a directory
273 tree in (two-character) hexadecimal form.
276 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-EXAMPLE">EXAMPLE</a></H2><PRE>
277 As an example, here is a description for the Lear-Siegler ADM-3, a pop-
278 ular though rather stupid early terminal:
283 bel=^G, clear= 32$<1>, cr=^M, cub1=^H, cud1=^J,
284 cuf1=^L, cup=\E=%p1%{32}%+%c%p2%{32}%+%c, cuu1=^K,
288 and a hexadecimal dump of the compiled terminal description:
290 0000 1a 01 10 00 02 00 03 00 82 00 31 00 61 64 6d 33 ........ ..1.adm3
291 0010 61 7c 6c 73 69 20 61 64 6d 33 61 00 00 01 50 00 a|lsi ad m3a...P.
292 0020 ff ff 18 00 ff ff 00 00 02 00 ff ff ff ff 04 00 ........ ........
293 0030 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff 0a 00 25 00 27 00 ff ff ........ ..%.'...
294 0040 29 00 ff ff ff ff 2b 00 ff ff 2d 00 ff ff ff ff ).....+. ..-.....
295 0050 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........
296 0060 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........
297 0070 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........
298 0080 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........
299 0090 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........
300 00a0 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........
301 00b0 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........
302 00c0 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........
303 00d0 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........
304 00e0 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........
305 00f0 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........
306 0100 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........
307 0110 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........
308 0120 ff ff ff ff ff ff 2f 00 07 00 0d 00 1a 24 3c 31 ....../. .....$<1
309 0130 3e 00 1b 3d 25 70 31 25 7b 33 32 7d 25 2b 25 63 >..=%p1% {32}%+%c
310 0140 25 70 32 25 7b 33 32 7d 25 2b 25 63 00 0a 00 1e %p2%{32} %+%c....
311 0150 00 08 00 0c 00 0b 00 0a 00 ........ .
315 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-LIMITS">LIMITS</a></H2><PRE>
318 <STRONG>o</STRONG> total compiled entries cannot exceed 4096 bytes in the legacy for-
321 <STRONG>o</STRONG> total compiled entries cannot exceed 32768 bytes in the extended
324 <STRONG>o</STRONG> the name field cannot exceed 128 bytes.
327 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-FILES">FILES</a></H2><PRE>
328 /usr/share/terminfo/*/* compiled terminal capability data base
331 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></H2><PRE>
332 <STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">curses(3x)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>.
335 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-AUTHORS">AUTHORS</a></H2><PRE>
337 extended terminfo format for ncurses 5.0
338 hashed database support for ncurses 5.6
339 extended number support for ncurses 6.1
342 documented legacy terminfo format, e.g., from pcurses.
346 <STRONG><A HREF="term.5.html">term(5)</A></STRONG>
350 <li><a href="#h2-NAME">NAME</a></li>
351 <li><a href="#h2-SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a></li>
352 <li><a href="#h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a>
354 <li><a href="#h3-STORAGE-LOCATION">STORAGE LOCATION</a></li>
355 <li><a href="#h3-LEGACY-STORAGE-FORMAT">LEGACY STORAGE FORMAT</a></li>
356 <li><a href="#h3-EXTENDED-STORAGE-FORMAT">EXTENDED STORAGE FORMAT</a></li>
357 <li><a href="#h3-EXTENDED-NUMBER-FORMAT">EXTENDED NUMBER FORMAT</a></li>
360 <li><a href="#h2-PORTABILITY">PORTABILITY</a>
362 <li><a href="#h3-setupterm">setupterm</a></li>
363 <li><a href="#h3-Binary-format">Binary format</a></li>
364 <li><a href="#h3-Magic-codes">Magic codes</a></li>
365 <li><a href="#h3-The-TERMTYPE-structure">The TERMTYPE structure</a></li>
366 <li><a href="#h3-Mixed-case-terminal-names">Mixed-case terminal names</a></li>
369 <li><a href="#h2-EXAMPLE">EXAMPLE</a></li>
370 <li><a href="#h2-LIMITS">LIMITS</a></li>
371 <li><a href="#h2-FILES">FILES</a></li>
372 <li><a href="#h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></li>
373 <li><a href="#h2-AUTHORS">AUTHORS</a></li>