2 ****************************************************************************
3 * Copyright (c) 1998-2013,2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc. *
5 * Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a *
6 * copy of this software and associated documentation files (the *
7 * "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including *
8 * without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, *
9 * distribute, distribute with modifications, sublicense, and/or sell *
10 * copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is *
11 * furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: *
13 * The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included *
14 * in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. *
16 * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS *
17 * OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF *
18 * MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. *
19 * IN NO EVENT SHALL THE ABOVE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, *
20 * DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR *
21 * OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR *
22 * THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. *
24 * Except as contained in this notice, the name(s) of the above copyright *
25 * holders shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the *
26 * sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written *
28 ****************************************************************************
29 * @Id: tic.1m,v 1.60 2014/05/24 22:00:11 tom Exp @
31 <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN">
34 <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
35 <meta name="generator" content="Manpage converted by man2html - see http://invisible-island.net/scripts/readme.html#others_scripts">
37 <link rev=made href="mailto:bug-ncurses@gnu.org">
38 <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
41 <H1 class="no-header">tic 1m</H1>
43 <STRONG><A HREF="tic.1m.html">tic(1m)</A></STRONG> <STRONG><A HREF="tic.1m.html">tic(1m)</A></STRONG>
49 <H2><a name="h2-NAME">NAME</a></H2><PRE>
50 <STRONG>tic</STRONG> - the <EM>terminfo</EM> entry-description compiler
54 <H2><a name="h2-SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a></H2><PRE>
55 <STRONG>tic</STRONG> [<STRONG>-01CDGIKLNTUVacfgrstx</STRONG>] [<STRONG>-e</STRONG> <EM>names</EM>] [<STRONG>-o</STRONG> <EM>dir</EM>] [<STRONG>-R</STRONG> <EM>sub-</EM>
56 <EM>set</EM>] [<STRONG>-v</STRONG>[<EM>n</EM>]] [<STRONG>-w</STRONG>[<EM>n</EM>]] <EM>file</EM>
60 <H2><a name="h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a></H2><PRE>
61 The <STRONG>tic</STRONG> command translates a <STRONG>terminfo</STRONG> file from source
62 format into compiled format. The compiled format is nec-
63 essary for use with the library routines in <STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">ncurses(3x)</A></STRONG>.
65 As described in <STRONG><A HREF="term.5.html">term(5)</A></STRONG>, the database may be either a
66 directory tree (one file per terminal entry) or a hashed
67 database (one record per entry). The <STRONG>tic</STRONG> command writes
68 only one type of entry, depending on how it was built:
70 <STRONG>o</STRONG> For directory trees, the top-level directory, e.g.,
71 /usr/share/terminfo, specifies the location of the
74 <STRONG>o</STRONG> For hashed databases, a filename is needed. If the
75 given file is not found by that name, but can be found
76 by adding the suffix ".db", then that is used.
78 The default name for the hashed database is the same
79 as the default directory name (only adding a ".db"
82 In either case (directory or hashed database), <STRONG>tic</STRONG> will
83 create the container if it does not exist. For a direc-
84 tory, this would be the "terminfo" leaf, versus a "ter-
87 The results are normally placed in the system terminfo
88 database <STRONG>/usr/share/terminfo</STRONG>. The compiled terminal
89 description can be placed in a different terminfo data-
90 base. There are two ways to achieve this:
92 <STRONG>o</STRONG> First, you may override the system default either by
93 using the <STRONG>-o</STRONG> option, or by setting the variable <STRONG>TER-</STRONG>
94 <STRONG>MINFO</STRONG> in your shell environment to a valid database
97 <STRONG>o</STRONG> Secondly, if <STRONG>tic</STRONG> cannot write in <EM>/usr/share/terminfo</EM>
98 or the location specified using your TERMINFO vari-
99 able, it looks for the directory <EM>$HOME/.terminfo</EM> (or
100 hashed database <EM>$HOME/.terminfo.db)</EM>; if that location
101 exists, the entry is placed there.
103 Libraries that read terminfo entries are expected to check
106 <STRONG>o</STRONG> a location specified with the TERMINFO environment
109 <STRONG>o</STRONG> <EM>$HOME/.terminfo</EM>,
111 <STRONG>o</STRONG> directories listed in the TERMINFO_DIRS environment
114 <STRONG>o</STRONG> a compiled-in list of directories
115 (/usr/local/ncurses/share/terminfo:/usr/share/ter-
118 <STRONG>o</STRONG> the system terminfo database (<EM>/usr/share/terminfo</EM>).
122 <H3><a name="h3-OPTIONS">OPTIONS</a></H3><PRE>
123 <STRONG>-0</STRONG> restricts the output to a single line
125 <STRONG>-1</STRONG> restricts the output to a single column
127 <STRONG>-a</STRONG> tells <STRONG>tic</STRONG> to retain commented-out capabilities
128 rather than discarding them. Capabilities are com-
129 mented by prefixing them with a period. This sets
130 the <STRONG>-x</STRONG> option, because it treats the commented-out
131 entries as user-defined names. If the source is
132 termcap, accept the 2-character names required by
133 version 6. Otherwise these are ignored.
135 <STRONG>-C</STRONG> Force source translation to termcap format. Note:
136 this differs from the <STRONG>-C</STRONG> option of <STRONG><A HREF="infocmp.1m.html">infocmp(1m)</A></STRONG> in
137 that it does not merely translate capability names,
138 but also translates terminfo strings to termcap
139 format. Capabilities that are not translatable are
140 left in the entry under their terminfo names but
141 commented out with two preceding dots. The actual
142 format used incorporates some improvements for
143 escaped characters from terminfo format. For a
144 stricter BSD-compatible translation, add the <STRONG>-K</STRONG>
147 If this is combined with <STRONG>-c</STRONG>, <STRONG>tic</STRONG> makes additional
148 checks to report cases where the terminfo values do
149 not have an exact equivalent in termcap form. For
152 <STRONG>o</STRONG> <STRONG>sgr</STRONG> usually will not convert, because termcap
153 lacks the ability to work with more than two
154 parameters, and because termcap lacks many of
155 the arithmetic/logical operators used in ter-
158 <STRONG>o</STRONG> capabilities with more than one delay or with
159 delays before the end of the string will not
162 <STRONG>-c</STRONG> tells <STRONG>tic</STRONG> to only check <EM>file</EM> for errors, including
163 syntax problems and bad use links. If you specify
164 <STRONG>-C</STRONG> (<STRONG>-I</STRONG>) with this option, the code will print warn-
165 ings about entries which, after use resolution, are
166 more than 1023 (4096) bytes long. Due to a fixed
167 buffer length in older termcap libraries, as well
168 as buggy checking for the buffer length (and a doc-
169 umented limit in terminfo), these entries may cause
170 core dumps with other implementations.
172 <STRONG>tic</STRONG> checks string capabilities to ensure that those
173 with parameters will be valid expressions. It does
174 this check only for the predefined string capabili-
175 ties; those which are defined with the <STRONG>-x</STRONG> option
178 <STRONG>-D</STRONG> tells <STRONG>tic</STRONG> to print the database locations that it
179 knows about, and exit. The first location shown is
180 the one to which it would write compiled terminal
181 descriptions. If <STRONG>tic</STRONG> is not able to find a
182 writable database location according to the rules
183 summarized above, it will print a diagnostic and
184 exit with an error rather than printing a list of
187 <STRONG>-e</STRONG> <EM>names</EM>
188 Limit writes and translations to the following
189 comma-separated list of terminals. If any name or
190 alias of a terminal matches one of the names in the
191 list, the entry will be written or translated as
192 normal. Otherwise no output will be generated for
193 it. The option value is interpreted as a file con-
194 taining the list if it contains a '/'. (Note:
195 depending on how tic was compiled, this option may
196 require <STRONG>-I</STRONG> or <STRONG>-C</STRONG>.)
198 <STRONG>-f</STRONG> Display complex terminfo strings which contain
199 if/then/else/endif expressions indented for read-
202 <STRONG>-G</STRONG> Display constant literals in decimal form rather
203 than their character equivalents.
205 <STRONG>-g</STRONG> Display constant character literals in quoted form
206 rather than their decimal equivalents.
208 <STRONG>-I</STRONG> Force source translation to terminfo format.
210 <STRONG>-K</STRONG> Suppress some longstanding ncurses extensions to
211 termcap format, e.g., "\s" for space.
213 <STRONG>-L</STRONG> Force source translation to terminfo format using
214 the long C variable names listed in <<STRONG>term.h</STRONG>>
216 <STRONG>-N</STRONG> Disable smart defaults. Normally, when translating
217 from termcap to terminfo, the compiler makes a num-
218 ber of assumptions about the defaults of string
219 capabilities <STRONG>reset1_string</STRONG>, <STRONG>carriage_return</STRONG>, <STRONG>cur-</STRONG>
220 <STRONG>sor_left</STRONG>, <STRONG>cursor_down</STRONG>, <STRONG>scroll_forward</STRONG>, <STRONG>tab</STRONG>, <STRONG>new-</STRONG>
221 <STRONG>line</STRONG>, <STRONG>key_backspace</STRONG>, <STRONG>key_left</STRONG>, and <STRONG>key_down</STRONG>, then
222 attempts to use obsolete termcap capabilities to
223 deduce correct values. It also normally suppresses
224 output of obsolete termcap capabilities such as <STRONG>bs</STRONG>.
225 This option forces a more literal translation that
226 also preserves the obsolete capabilities.
228 <STRONG>-o</STRONG><EM>dir</EM> Write compiled entries to given database location.
229 Overrides the TERMINFO environment variable.
231 <STRONG>-R</STRONG><EM>subset</EM>
232 Restrict output to a given subset. This option is
233 for use with archaic versions of terminfo like
234 those on SVr1, Ultrix, or HP/UX that do not support
235 the full set of SVR4/XSI Curses terminfo; and out-
236 right broken ports like AIX 3.x that have their own
237 extensions incompatible with SVr4/XSI. Available
238 subsets are "SVr1", "Ultrix", "HP", "BSD" and
239 "AIX"; see <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG> for details.
241 <STRONG>-r</STRONG> Force entry resolution (so there are no remaining
242 tc capabilities) even when doing translation to
243 termcap format. This may be needed if you are pre-
244 paring a termcap file for a termcap library (such
245 as GNU termcap through version 1.3 or BSD termcap
246 through 4.3BSD) that does not handle multiple tc
247 capabilities per entry.
249 <STRONG>-s</STRONG> Summarize the compile by showing the database loca-
250 tion into which entries are written, and the number
251 of entries which are compiled.
253 <STRONG>-T</STRONG> eliminates size-restrictions on the generated text.
254 This is mainly useful for testing and analysis,
255 since the compiled descriptions are limited (e.g.,
256 1023 for termcap, 4096 for terminfo).
258 <STRONG>-t</STRONG> tells <STRONG>tic</STRONG> to discard commented-out capabilities.
259 Normally when translating from terminfo to termcap,
260 untranslatable capabilities are commented-out.
262 <STRONG>-U</STRONG> tells <STRONG>tic</STRONG> to not post-process the data after parsing
263 the source file. Normally, it infers data which is
264 commonly missing in older terminfo data, or in term-
267 <STRONG>-V</STRONG> reports the version of ncurses which was used in this
270 <STRONG>-v</STRONG><EM>n</EM> specifies that (verbose) output be written to stan-
271 dard error trace information showing <STRONG>tic</STRONG>'s progress.
272 The optional parameter <EM>n</EM> is a number from 1 to 10,
273 inclusive, indicating the desired level of detail of
274 information. If <EM>n</EM> is omitted, the default level is
275 1. If <EM>n</EM> is specified and greater than 1, the level
276 of detail is increased.
278 The debug flag levels are as follows:
280 1 Names of files created and linked
282 2 Information related to the "use" facility
284 3 Statistics from the hashing algorithm
286 5 String-table memory allocations
288 7 Entries into the string-table
290 8 List of tokens encountered by scanner
292 9 All values computed in construction of the
295 If the debug level <EM>n</EM> is not given, it is taken to be
298 <STRONG>-w</STRONG><EM>n</EM> specifies the width of the output. The parameter is
299 optional. If it is omitted, it defaults to 60.
301 <STRONG>-x</STRONG> Treat unknown capabilities as user-defined. That is,
302 if you supply a capability name which <STRONG>tic</STRONG> does not
303 recognize, it will infer its type (boolean, number or
304 string) from the syntax and make an extended table
305 entry for that. User-defined capability strings
306 whose name begins with "k" are treated as function
311 <H3><a name="h3-PARAMETERS">PARAMETERS</a></H3><PRE>
312 <EM>file</EM> contains one or more <STRONG>terminfo</STRONG> terminal descriptions
313 in source format [see <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>]. Each descrip-
314 tion in the file describes the capabilities of a
317 If <EM>file</EM> is "-", then the data is read from the
318 standard input. The <EM>file</EM> parameter may also be the
319 path of a character-device.
323 <H3><a name="h3-PROCESSING">PROCESSING</a></H3><PRE>
324 All but one of the capabilities recognized by <STRONG>tic</STRONG> are doc-
325 umented in <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>. The exception is the <STRONG>use</STRONG> capabil-
328 When a <STRONG>use</STRONG>=<EM>entry</EM>-<EM>name</EM> field is discovered in a terminal
329 entry currently being compiled, <STRONG>tic</STRONG> reads in the binary
330 from <STRONG>/usr/share/terminfo</STRONG> to complete the entry. (Entries
331 created from <EM>file</EM> will be used first. <STRONG>tic</STRONG> duplicates the
332 capabilities in <EM>entry</EM>-<EM>name</EM> for the current entry, with the
333 exception of those capabilities that explicitly are
334 defined in the current entry.
336 When an entry, e.g., <STRONG>entry_name_1</STRONG>, contains a
337 <STRONG>use=</STRONG><EM>entry</EM>_<EM>name</EM>_<EM>2</EM> field, any canceled capabilities in
338 <EM>entry</EM>_<EM>name</EM>_<EM>2</EM> must also appear in <STRONG>entry_name_1</STRONG> before <STRONG>use=</STRONG>
339 for these capabilities to be canceled in <STRONG>entry_name_1</STRONG>.
341 Total compiled entries cannot exceed 4096 bytes. The name
342 field cannot exceed 512 bytes. Terminal names exceeding
343 the maximum alias length (32 characters on systems with
344 long filenames, 14 characters otherwise) will be truncated
345 to the maximum alias length and a warning message will be
350 <H2><a name="h2-COMPATIBILITY">COMPATIBILITY</a></H2><PRE>
351 There is some evidence that historic <STRONG>tic</STRONG> implementations
352 treated description fields with no whitespace in them as
353 additional aliases or short names. This <STRONG>tic</STRONG> does not do
354 that, but it does warn when description fields may be
355 treated that way and check them for dangerous characters.
359 <H2><a name="h2-EXTENSIONS">EXTENSIONS</a></H2><PRE>
360 Unlike the SVr4 <STRONG>tic</STRONG> command, this implementation can actu-
361 ally compile termcap sources. In fact, entries in ter-
362 minfo and termcap syntax can be mixed in a single source
363 file. See <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG> for the list of termcap names taken
364 to be equivalent to terminfo names.
366 The SVr4 manual pages are not clear on the resolution
367 rules for <STRONG>use</STRONG> capabilities. This implementation of <STRONG>tic</STRONG>
368 will find <STRONG>use</STRONG> targets anywhere in the source file, or any-
369 where in the file tree rooted at <STRONG>TERMINFO</STRONG> (if <STRONG>TERMINFO</STRONG> is
370 defined), or in the user's <EM>$HOME/.terminfo</EM> database (if it
371 exists), or (finally) anywhere in the system's file tree
374 The error messages from this <STRONG>tic</STRONG> have the same format as
375 GNU C error messages, and can be parsed by GNU Emacs's
378 The <STRONG>-0</STRONG>, <STRONG>-1</STRONG>, <STRONG>-C</STRONG>, <STRONG>-G</STRONG>, <STRONG>-I</STRONG>, <STRONG>-N</STRONG>, <STRONG>-R</STRONG>, <STRONG>-T</STRONG>, <STRONG>-V</STRONG>, <STRONG>-a</STRONG>, <STRONG>-e</STRONG>, <STRONG>-f</STRONG>, <STRONG>-g</STRONG>,
379 <STRONG>-o</STRONG>, <STRONG>-r</STRONG>, <STRONG>-s</STRONG>, <STRONG>-t</STRONG> and <STRONG>-x</STRONG> options are not supported under
380 SVr4. The SVr4 <STRONG>-c</STRONG> mode does not report bad use links.
382 System V does not compile entries to or read entries from
383 your <EM>$HOME/.terminfo</EM> database unless TERMINFO is explic-
388 <H2><a name="h2-FILES">FILES</a></H2><PRE>
389 <STRONG>/usr/share/terminfo/?/*</STRONG>
390 Compiled terminal description database.
394 <H2><a name="h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></H2><PRE>
395 <STRONG><A HREF="infocmp.1m.html">infocmp(1m)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="captoinfo.1m.html">captoinfo(1m)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="infotocap.1m.html">infotocap(1m)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="toe.1m.html">toe(1m)</A></STRONG>,
396 <STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">curses(3x)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="term.5.html">term(5)</A></STRONG>. <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>.
398 This describes <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> version 6.0 (patch 20150606).
402 <H2><a name="h2-AUTHOR">AUTHOR</a></H2><PRE>
403 Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com> and
404 Thomas E. Dickey <dickey@invisible-island.net>
408 <STRONG><A HREF="tic.1m.html">tic(1m)</A></STRONG>
412 <li><a href="#h2-NAME">NAME</a></li>
413 <li><a href="#h2-SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a></li>
414 <li><a href="#h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a>
416 <li><a href="#h3-OPTIONS">OPTIONS</a></li>
417 <li><a href="#h3-PARAMETERS">PARAMETERS</a></li>
418 <li><a href="#h3-PROCESSING">PROCESSING</a></li>
421 <li><a href="#h2-COMPATIBILITY">COMPATIBILITY</a></li>
422 <li><a href="#h2-EXTENSIONS">EXTENSIONS</a></li>
423 <li><a href="#h2-FILES">FILES</a></li>
424 <li><a href="#h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></li>
425 <li><a href="#h2-AUTHOR">AUTHOR</a></li>