The tic command translates a terminfo file from source
format into compiled format. The compiled format is nec-
essary for use with the library routines in ncurses(3x).
As described in term(5), the database may be either a
directory tree (one file per terminal entry) or a hashed
- database (one record per entry). The tic writes only one
- type of entry, depending on how it was built:
+ database (one record per 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/terminfo, specifies the location of the
@@ -79,16 +76,20 @@
as the default directory name (only adding a ".db"
suffix).
- 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:
+ In either case (directory or hashed database), tic will
+ create the container if it does not exist. For a direc-
+ tory, this would be the "terminfo" leaf, versus a "ter-
+ minfo.db" file.
- o First, you may override the system default by setting
- the variable TERMINFO in your shell environment to a
- valid database location, e.g., an existing directory
- (for directory trees) or valid location for a hashed
- database.
+ The results are normally placed in the system terminfo
+ database /usr/share/terminfo. The compiled terminal
+ description can be placed in a different terminfo data-
+ base. 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 TER-
+ MINFO in your shell environment to a valid database
+ location.
o Secondly, if tic cannot write in /usr/share/terminfo
or the location specified using your TERMINFO vari-
@@ -97,10 +98,24 @@
exists, the entry is placed there.
Libraries that read terminfo entries are expected to check
- for a location specified with the TERMINFO variable first,
- look at $HOME/.terminfo if TERMINFO is not set, and
- finally look in /usr/share/terminfo.
+ in succession
+
+ o a location specified with the TERMINFO environment
+ variable,
+
+ o$HOME/.terminfo,
+
+ o directories listed in the TERMINFO_DIRS environment
+ variable,
+
+ o a compiled-in list of directories
+ (/usr/local/ncurses/share/terminfo:/usr/share/ter-
+ minfo), and
+
+ o the system terminfo database (/usr/share/terminfo).
+
+
-0 restricts the output to a single line
-1 restricts the output to a single column
@@ -125,116 +140,174 @@
stricter BSD-compatible translation, add the -K
option.
- -c tells tic to only check file for errors, including
- syntax problems and bad use links. If you specify
+ 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 in ter-
+ minfo.
+
+ 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 problems and bad use links. If you specify
-C (-I) with this option, the code will print warn-
ings 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
+ 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 doc-
umented limit in terminfo), these entries may cause
core dumps with other implementations.
- -D tells tic to print the database locations that it
+ tic checks string capabilities to ensure that those
+ with parameters will be valid expressions. It does
+ this check only for the predefined string capabili-
+ ties; those which are defined with the -x option
+ are ignored.
+
+ -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
+ 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
- summarized above, it will print a diagnostic and
- exit with an error rather than printing a list of
+ 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.
-enames
- Limit writes and translations to the following
- comma-separated list of terminals. If any name or
+ 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 translated as
- normal. Otherwise no output will be generated for
+ 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 con-
- taining the list if it contains a '/'. (Note:
- depending on how tic was compiled, this option may
+ taining 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
- if/then/else/endif expressions indented for read-
+ if/then/else/endif expressions indented for read-
ability.
- -G Display constant literals in decimal form rather
+ -G Display constant literals in decimal form rather
than their character equivalents.
- -g Display constant character literals in quoted form
+ -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
+ -K Suppress some longstanding ncurses extensions to
termcap format, e.g., "\s" for space.
- -L Force source translation to terminfo format using
+ -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 num-
- ber of assumptions about the defaults of string
- capabilities reset1_string, carriage_return, cur-
- sor_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 also normally sup-
- presses output of obsolete termcap capabilities
- such as bs. This option forces a more literal
- translation that also preserves the obsolete capa-
- bilities.
+ ber of assumptions about the defaults of string
+ capabilities reset1_string, carriage_return, cur-
+ sor_left, cursor_down, scroll_forward, tab, new-
+ line, key_backspace, key_left, and key_down, then
+ attempts to 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
+ also preserves the obsolete capabilities.
-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, depending on the option's value:
+
+ 1 hexadecimal
+
+ 2 base64
+
+ 3 hexadecimal and base64
+
+ -q Suppress comments and blank lines when showing
+ translated source.
+
-Rsubset
- Restrict output to a given subset. This option is
- for use with archaic versions of terminfo like
+ 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 out-
+ the full set of SVR4/XSI Curses terminfo; and out-
right broken ports like AIX 3.x that have their own
- extensions incompatible with SVr4/XSI. Available
+ 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 multi-
- ple tc capabilities per entry.
+ -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 pre-
+ paring 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 loca-
tion 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.,
+ 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.
+ -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 file. Normally, it infers data which is
- commonly missing in older terminfo data, or in term-
+ -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 term-
caps.
-V reports the version of ncurses which was used in this
program, and exits.
- -vn specifies that (verbose) output be written to stan-
- dard error trace information showing tic's progress.
+ -vn specifies that (verbose) output be written to stan-
+ dard 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 n is omitted, the default level is
- 1. If n is specified and greater than 1, the level
- of detail is increased.
+ 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 specified
+ and greater than 1, the level of detail is increased.
+
+ The debug flag levels are as follows:
+
+ 1 Names of files created and linked
+
+ 2 Information related to the "use" facility
+
+ 3 Statistics from the hashing algorithm
+
+ 5 String-table memory allocations
+
+ 7 Entries into the string-table
+
+ 8 List of tokens encountered by scanner
+
+ 9 All values computed in construction of the
+ hash table
+
+ If the debug level n is not given, it is taken to be
+ one.
+
+ -W By itself, the -w option will not force long strings
+ to be wrapped. Use the -W option to do this.
-wn specifies the width of the output. The parameter is
optional. If it is omitted, it defaults to 60.
@@ -244,33 +317,22 @@
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
+ 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 particu-
- lar terminal.
-
- The debug flag levels are as follows:
-
- 1 Names of files created and linked
- 2 Information related to the ``use'' facility
+
+ file contains one or more terminfo terminal descriptions
+ in source format [see terminfo(5)]. Each descrip-
+ tion in the file describes the capabilities of a
+ particular terminal.
- 3 Statistics from the hashing algorithm
+ If file is "-", then the data is read from the
+ standard input. The file parameter may also be the
+ path of a character-device.
- 5 String-table memory allocations
-
- 7 Entries into the string-table
-
- 8 List of tokens encountered by scanner
-
- 9 All values computed in construction of the hash ta-
- ble
-
- If the debug level n is not given, it is taken to be one.
+
All but one of the capabilities recognized by tic are doc-
umented in terminfo(5). The exception is the use capabil-
ity.
@@ -278,11 +340,9 @@
When a use=entry-name field is discovered in a terminal
entry currently being compiled, tic reads in the binary
from /usr/share/terminfo to complete the entry. (Entries
- created from file will be used first. If the environment
- variable TERMINFO is set, that database location is
- searched instead of /usr/share/terminfo.) tic duplicates
- the capabilities in entry-name for the current entry, with
- the exception of those capabilities that explicitly are
+ 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
@@ -290,33 +350,28 @@
entry_name_2 must also appear in entry_name_1 before use=
for these capabilities to be canceled in entry_name_1.
- If the environment variable TERMINFO is set, the compiled
- results are placed there instead of /usr/share/terminfo.
-
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
+ 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
+ to the maximum alias length and a warning message will be
printed.
-
-
COMPATIBILITY
- 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.
+
+ 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.
-
-
EXTENSIONS
- Unlike the stock 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.
+
+ Unlike the SVr4 tic command, this implementation can actu-
+ ally compile termcap sources. In fact, entries in ter-
+ minfo 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
@@ -339,22 +394,19 @@
itly set to it.
-