- where <EM>entry</EM><STRONG>_</STRONG><EM>name</EM> is the name of the type you wish to exam-
- ine (and the name of its capability file the subdirectory
- of /usr/share/terminfo named for its first letter). This
- command dumps a capability file in the text format
- described by <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>.
-
- The first line of a <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG> description gives the
- names by which terminfo knows a terminal, separated by `|'
- (pipe-bar) characters with the last name field terminated
- by a comma. The first name field is the type's <EM>primary</EM>
- <EM>name</EM>, and is the one to use when setting <STRONG>TERM</STRONG>. The last
- name field (if distinct from the first) is actually a
- description of the terminal type (it may contain blanks;
- the others must be single words). Name fields between the
- first and last (if present) are aliases for the terminal,
- usually historical names retained for compatibility.
-
- There are some conventions for how to choose terminal pri-
- mary names that help keep them informative and unique.
- Here is a step-by-step guide to naming terminals that also
- explains how to parse them:
-
- First, choose a root name. The root will consist of a
- lower-case letter followed by up to seven lower-case let-
- ters or digits. You need to avoid using punctuation char-
- acters in root names, because they are used and inter-
- preted as filenames and shell meta-characters (such as !,
- $, *, ?, etc.) embedded in them may cause odd and unhelp-
- ful behavior. The slash (/), or any other character that
- may be interpreted by anyone's file system (\, $, [, ]),
- is especially dangerous (terminfo is platform-independent,
- and choosing names with special characters could someday
- make life difficult for users of a future port). The dot
- (.) character is relatively safe as long as there is at
- most one per root name; some historical terminfo names use
- it.
-
- The root name for a terminal or workstation console type
- should almost always begin with a vendor prefix (such as
- <STRONG>hp</STRONG> for Hewlett-Packard, <STRONG>wy</STRONG> for Wyse, or <STRONG>att</STRONG> for AT&T ter-
- minals), or a common name of the terminal line (<STRONG>vt</STRONG> for the
- VT series of terminals from DEC, or <STRONG>sun</STRONG> for Sun Microsys-
- tems workstation consoles, or <STRONG>regent</STRONG> for the ADDS Regent
- series. You can list the terminfo tree to see what pre-
- fixes are already in common use. The root name prefix
- should be followed when appropriate by a model number;
- thus <STRONG>vt100</STRONG>, <STRONG>hp2621</STRONG>, <STRONG>wy50</STRONG>.
-
- The root name for a PC-Unix console type should be the OS
- name, i.e., <STRONG>linux</STRONG>, <STRONG>bsdos</STRONG>, <STRONG>freebsd</STRONG>, <STRONG>netbsd</STRONG>. It should <EM>not</EM>
- be <STRONG>console</STRONG> or any other generic that might cause confusion
- in a multi-platform environment! If a model number fol-
- lows, it should indicate either the OS release level or
- the console driver release level.
-
- The root name for a terminal emulator (assuming it does
- not fit one of the standard ANSI or vt100 types) should be
- the program name or a readily recognizable abbreviation of
- it (i.e., <STRONG>versaterm</STRONG>, <STRONG>ctrm</STRONG>).
-
- Following the root name, you may add any reasonable number
- of hyphen-separated feature suffixes.
+ where <EM>entry</EM><STRONG>_</STRONG><EM>name</EM> is the name of the type you wish to examine (and the
+ name of its capability file the subdirectory of /usr/share/terminfo
+ named for its first letter). This command dumps a capability file in
+ the text format described by <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>.
+
+ The first line of a <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG> description gives the names by which
+ terminfo knows a terminal, separated by "|" (pipe-bar) characters with
+ the last name field terminated by a comma. The first name field is the
+ type's <EM>primary</EM> <EM>name</EM>, and is the one to use when setting <STRONG>TERM</STRONG>. The last
+ name field (if distinct from the first) is actually a description of
+ the terminal type (it may contain blanks; the others must be single
+ words). Name fields between the first and last (if present) are
+ aliases for the terminal, usually historical names retained for
+ compatibility.
+
+ There are some conventions for how to choose terminal primary names
+ that help keep them informative and unique. Here is a step-by-step
+ guide to naming terminals that also explains how to parse them:
+
+ First, choose a root name. The root will consist of a lower-case
+ letter followed by up to seven lower-case letters or digits. You need
+ to avoid using punctuation characters in root names, because they are
+ used and interpreted as filenames and shell meta-characters (such as !,
+ $, *, ?, etc.) embedded in them may cause odd and unhelpful behavior.
+ The slash (/), or any other character that may be interpreted by
+ anyone's file system (\, $, [, ]), is especially dangerous (terminfo is
+ platform-independent, and choosing names with special characters could
+ someday make life difficult for users of a future port). The dot (.)
+ character is relatively safe as long as there is at most one per root
+ name; some historical terminfo names use it.
+
+ The root name for a terminal or workstation console type should almost
+ always begin with a vendor prefix (such as <STRONG>hp</STRONG> for Hewlett-Packard, <STRONG>wy</STRONG>
+ for Wyse, or <STRONG>att</STRONG> for AT&T terminals), or a common name of the terminal
+ line (<STRONG>vt</STRONG> for the VT series of terminals from DEC, or <STRONG>sun</STRONG> for Sun
+ Microsystems workstation consoles, or <STRONG>regent</STRONG> for the ADDS Regent
+ series. You can list the terminfo tree to see what prefixes are
+ already in common use. The root name prefix should be followed when
+ appropriate by a model number; thus <STRONG>vt100</STRONG>, <STRONG>hp2621</STRONG>, <STRONG>wy50</STRONG>.
+
+ The root name for a PC-Unix console type should be the OS name, i.e.,
+ <STRONG>linux</STRONG>, <STRONG>bsdos</STRONG>, <STRONG>freebsd</STRONG>, <STRONG>netbsd</STRONG>. It should <EM>not</EM> be <STRONG>console</STRONG> or any other
+ generic that might cause confusion in a multi-platform environment! If
+ a model number follows, it should indicate either the OS release level
+ or the console driver release level.
+
+ The root name for a terminal emulator (assuming it does not fit one of
+ the standard ANSI or vt100 types) should be the program name or a
+ readily recognizable abbreviation of it (i.e., <STRONG>versaterm</STRONG>, <STRONG>ctrm</STRONG>).
+
+ Following the root name, you may add any reasonable number of hyphen-
+ separated feature suffixes.
projects / ncurses.git / blobdiff