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infocmp(1M) infocmp(1M)
NAME
infocmp - compare or print out terminfo descriptions
SYNOPSIS
infocmp [-1CEFGILTVcdegilnpqrtux]
[-v n] [-s d| i| l| c] [-R subset]
[-w width] [-A directory] [-B directory]
[termname...]
DESCRIPTION
infocmp can be used to compare a binary terminfo entry with other ter-
minfo entries, rewrite a terminfo description to take advantage of the
use= terminfo field, or print out a terminfo description from the
binary file (term) in a variety of formats. In all cases, the boolean
fields will be printed first, followed by the numeric fields, followed
by the string fields.
Default Options
If no options are specified and zero or one termnames are specified,
the -I option will be assumed. If more than one termname is speci-
fied, the -d option will be assumed.
Comparison Options [-d] [-c] [-n]
infocmp compares the terminfo description of the first terminal
termname with each of the descriptions given by the entries for the
other terminal's termnames. If a capability is defined for only one
of the terminals, the value returned will depend on the type of the
capability: F for boolean variables, -1 for integer variables, and
NULL for string variables.
The -d option produces a list of each capability that is different
between two entries. This option is useful to show the difference
between two entries, created by different people, for the same or sim-
ilar terminals.
The -c option produces a list of each capability that is common
between two entries. Capabilities that are not set are ignored. This
option can be used as a quick check to see if the -u option is worth
using.
The -n option produces a list of each capability that is in neither
entry. If no termnames are given, the environment variable TERM will
be used for both of the termnames. This can be used as a quick check
to see if anything was left out of a description.
Source Listing Options [-I] [-L] [-C] [-r]
The -I, -L, and -C options will produce a source listing for each ter-
minal named.
-I use the terminfo names
-L use the long C variable name listed in
-C use the termcap names
-r when using -C, put out all capabilities in termcap form
If no termnames are given, the environment variable TERM will be used
for the terminal name.
The source produced by the -C option may be used directly as a termcap
entry, but not all parameterized strings can be changed to the termcap
format. infocmp will attempt to convert most of the parameterized
information, and anything not converted will be plainly marked in the
output and commented out. These should be edited by hand.
All padding information for strings will be collected together and
placed at the beginning of the string where termcap expects it.
Mandatory padding (padding information with a trailing '/') will
become optional.
All termcap variables no longer supported by terminfo, but which are
derivable from other terminfo variables, will be output. Not all ter-
minfo capabilities will be translated; only those variables which were
part of termcap will normally be output. Specifying the -r option
will take off this restriction, allowing all capabilities to be output
in termcap form.
Note that because padding is collected to the beginning of the capa-
bility, not all capabilities are output. Mandatory padding is not
supported. Because termcap strings are not as flexible, it is not
always possible to convert a terminfo string capability into an equiv-
alent termcap format. A subsequent conversion of the termcap file
back into terminfo format will not necessarily reproduce the original
terminfo source.
Some common terminfo parameter sequences, their termcap equivalents,
and some terminal types which commonly have such sequences, are:
terminfo termcap Representative Terminals
---------------------------------------------------------------
%p1%c %. adm
%p1%d %d hp, ANSI standard, vt100
%p1%'x'%+%c %+x concept
%i %iq ANSI standard, vt100
%p1%?%'x'%>%t%p1%'y'%+%; %>xy concept
%p2 is printed before %p1 %r hp
Use= Option [-u]
The -u option produces a terminfo source description of the first ter-
minal termname which is relative to the sum of the descriptions given
by the entries for the other terminals termnames. It does this by
analyzing the differences between the first termname and the other
termnames and producing a description with use= fields for the other
terminals. In this manner, it is possible to retrofit generic ter-
minfo entries into a terminal's description. Or, if two similar ter-
minals exist, but were coded at different times or by different people
so that each description is a full description, using infocmp will
show what can be done to change one description to be relative to the
other.
A capability will get printed with an at-sign (@) if it no longer
exists in the first termname, but one of the other termname entries
contains a value for it. A capability's value gets printed if the
value in the first termname is not found in any of the other termname
entries, or if the first of the other termname entries that has this
capability gives a different value for the capability than that in the
first termname.
The order of the other termname entries is significant. Since the
terminfo compiler tic does a left-to-right scan of the capabilities,
specifying two use= entries that contain differing entries for the
same capabilities will produce different results depending on the
order that the entries are given in. infocmp will flag any such
inconsistencies between the other termname entries as they are found.
Alternatively, specifying a capability after a use= entry that con-
tains that capability will cause the second specification to be
ignored. Using infocmp to recreate a description can be a useful
check to make sure that everything was specified correctly in the
original source description.
Another error that does not cause incorrect compiled files, but will
slow down the compilation time, is specifying extra use= fields that
are superfluous. infocmp will flag any other termname use= fields
that were not needed.
Changing Databases [-A directory] [-B directory]
The location of the compiled terminfo database is taken from the envi-
ronment variable TERMINFO . If the variable is not defined, or the
terminal is not found in that location, the system terminfo database,
in /usr/share/terminfo, will be used. The options -A and -B may be
used to override this location. The -A option will set TERMINFO for
the first termname and the -B option will set TERMINFO for the other
termnames. With this, it is possible to compare descriptions for a
terminal with the same name located in two different databases. This
is useful for comparing descriptions for the same terminal created by
different people.
Other Options
-1 causes the fields to be printed out one to a line. Otherwise,
the fields will be printed several to a line to a maximum width
of 60 characters.
-a tells infocmp to retain commented-out capabilities rather than
discarding them. Capabilities are commented by prefixing them
with a period.
-E Dump the capabilities of the given terminal as tables, needed in
the C initializer for a TERMTYPE structure (the terminal capabil-
ity structure in the ). This option is useful for
preparing versions of the curses library hardwired for a given
terminal type. The tables are all declared static, and are named
according to the type and the name of the corresponding terminal
entry.
Before ncurses 5.0, the split between the -e and -E options was
not needed; but support for extended names required making the
arrays of terminal capabilities separate from the TERMTYPE struc-
ture.
-e Dump the capabilities of the given terminal as a C initializer
for a TERMTYPE structure (the terminal capability structure in
the ). This option is useful for preparing versions of
the curses library hardwired for a given terminal type.
-F compare terminfo files. This assumes that two following argu-
ments are filenames. The files are searched for pairwise matches
between entries, with two entries considered to match if any of
their names do. The report printed to standard output lists
entries with no matches in the other file, and entries with more
than one match. For entries with exactly one match it includes a
difference report. Normally, to reduce the volume of the report,
use references are not resolved before looking for differences,
but resolution can be forced by also specifying -r.
-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 char-
acter equivalents.
-g Display constant character literals in quoted form rather than
their decimal equivalents.
-i Analyze the initialization (is1, is2, is3), and reset (rs1, rs2,
rs3), strings in the entry. For each string, the code tries to
analyze it into actions in terms of the other capabilities in the
entry, certain X3.64/ISO 6429/ECMA-48 capabilities, and certain
DEC VT-series private modes (the set of recognized special
sequences has been selected for completeness over the existing
terminfo database). Each report line consists of the capability
name, followed by a colon and space, followed by a printable
expansion of the capability string with sections matching recog-
nized actions translated into {}-bracketed descriptions. Here is
a list of the DEC/ANSI special sequences recognized:
Action Meaning
-----------------------------------------
RIS full reset
SC save cursor
RC restore cursor
LL home-down
RSR reset scroll region
ISO DEC G0 enable DEC graphics for G0
ISO UK G0 enable UK chars for G0
ISO US G0 enable US chars for G0
ISO DEC G1 enable DEC graphics for G1
ISO UK G1 enable UK chars for G1
ISO US G1 enable US chars for G1
DECPAM application keypad mode
DECPNM normal keypad mode
DECANSI enter ANSI mode
DEC[+-]CKM application cursor keys
DEC[+-]ANM set VT52 mode
DEC[+-]COLM 132-column mode
DEC[+-]SCLM smooth scroll
DEC[+-]SCNM reverse video mode
DEC[+-]OM origin mode
DEC[+-]AWM wraparound mode
DEC[+-]ARM auto-repeat mode
It also recognizes a SGR action corresponding to ANSI/ISO
6429/ECMA Set Graphics Rendition, with the values NORMAL, BOLD,
UNDERLINE, BLINK, and REVERSE. All but NORMAL may be prefixed
with '+' (turn on) or '-' (turn off).
An SGR0 designates an empty highlight sequence (equivalent to
{SGR:NORMAL}).
-l Set output format to terminfo.
-p Ignore padding specifications when comparing strings.
-q Make the comparison listing shorter by omitting subheadings, and
using "-" for absent capabilities, "@" for canceled rather than
"NULL".
-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 terminfo; and
variants such as AIX that have their own extensions incompatible
with SVr4/XSI. Available terminfo subsets are "SVr1", "Ultrix",
"HP", and "AIX"; see terminfo(5) for details. You can also
choose the subset "BSD" which selects only capabilities with
termcap equivalents recognized by 4.4BSD.
-s [d|i|l|c]
The -s option sorts the fields within each type according to the
argument below:
d leave fields in the order that they are stored in the ter-
minfo database.
i sort by terminfo name.
l sort by the long C variable name.
c sort by the termcap name.
If the -s option is not given, the fields printed out will be
sorted alphabetically by the terminfo name within each type,
except in the case of the -C or the -L options, which cause the
sorting to be done by the termcap name or the long C variable
name, respectively.
-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 tells tic to discard commented-out capabilities. Normally when
translating from terminfo to termcap, untranslatable capabilities
are commented-out.
-V reports the version of ncurses which was used in this program,
and exits.
-v n prints out tracing information on standard error as the program
runs. Higher values of n induce greater verbosity.
-w width
changes the output to width characters.
-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. If the source is termcap, accept
the 2-character names required by version 6. Otherwise these are
ignored.
FILES
/usr/share/terminfo Compiled terminal description database.
EXTENSIONS
The -E, -F, -G, -R, -T, -V, -a, -e, -f, -g, -i, -l, -p, -q and -t
options are not supported in SVr4 curses.
The -r option's notion of 'termcap' capabilities is System V Release
4's. Actual BSD curses versions will have a more restricted set. To
see only the 4.4BSD set, use -r -RBSD.
BUGS
The -F option of infocmp(1M) should be a toe(1M) mode.
SEE ALSO
infocmp(1M), captoinfo(1M), infotocap(1M), tic(1M), toe(1M),
curses(3X), terminfo(5).
AUTHOR
Eric S. Raymond and
Thomas E. Dickey
infocmp(1M)
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