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tic(1M)                                                                                              tic(1M)



NAME
       tic - the terminfo entry-description compiler

SYNOPSIS
       tic [-1CGILNTVacfgrstx] [-e names] [-o dir] [-R subset] [-v[n]] [-w[n]] file

DESCRIPTION
       The  command  tic  translates  a terminfo file from source format into compiled format.  The compiled
       format is necessary for use with the library routines in ncurses(3X).

       The results are normally placed in the system terminfo directory /usr/share/terminfo.  There are  two
       ways to change this behavior.

       First, you may override the system default by setting the variable TERMINFO in your shell environment
       to a valid (existing) directory name.

       Secondly, if tic cannot get access to /usr/share/terminfo or your TERMINFO directory,  it  looks  for
       the directory $HOME/.terminfo; if that directory exists, the entry is placed there.

       Libraries  that  read  terminfo entries are expected to check for a TERMINFO directory first, look at
       $HOME/.terminfo if TERMINFO is not set, and finally look in /usr/share/terminfo.

       -1     restricts the output to a single column

       -a     tells tic to retain commented-out capabilities rather than discarding them.  Capabilities  are
              commented  by  prefixing  them  with a period.  This sets the -x option, because it treats the
              commented-out entries as user-defined names.  If the source is termcap, accept the 2-character
              names required by version 6.  Otherwise these are ignored.

       -C     Force  source  translation  to  termcap  format.   Note:  this  differs  from the -C option of
              infocmp(1M) in that it does not merely translate capability names, but  also  translates  ter-minfo terminfo
              minfo strings to termcap format.  Capabilities that are not translatable are left in the entry
              under their terminfo names but commented out with two preceding dots.

       -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 warnings about entries which, after use
              resolution, are more than 1023 (4096) bytes long.  Due to a fixed buffer length in older term-cap termcap
              cap libraries (and a documented limit in terminfo), these entries may cause core dumps.

       -e names
              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 it.  The option value is
              interpreted as a file containing 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
              readability.

       -G     Display constant literals in decimal form rather than their character equivalents.

       -g     Display constant character literals in quoted form rather than their decimal equivalents.

       -I     Force source translation to terminfo format.

       -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 number of assumptions about the defaults of string  capabilities  reset1_string,  car-riage_return, carriage_return,
              riage_return, cursor_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  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 directory.  Overrides the TERMINFO environment variable.

       -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 ter-minfo; terminfo;
              minfo; and outright broken ports like AIX 3.x that have their own 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 multiple tc capabilities per entry.

       -s     Summarize  the compile by showing the directory 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., 1023 for termcap, 4096 for ter-minfo). terminfo).
              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.

       -vn    specifies  that  (verbose) output be written to standard error trace information showing tic's
              progress.  The optional integer 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.

       -wn    specifies the width of the output.

       -x     Treat unknown capabilities as user-defined.  That is, if you supply 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.  User-defined capability strings 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 particular terminal.

       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.

       All but one of the capabilities recognized by tic are documented in terminfo(5).   The  exception  is
       the use capability.

       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  directory  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 defined in the current entry.

       When  an  entry,  e.g., entry_name_1, contains a use=entry_name_2 field, any canceled capabilities in
       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 long filenames, 14 characters
       otherwise) will be truncated 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  white-space whitespace
       space 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.

       The SVr4 manual pages are not clear on the resolution rules for use capabilities.   This  implementa-tion implementation
       tion of tic will find use targets anywhere in the source file, or anywhere in the file tree rooted at
       TERMINFO (if TERMINFO is defined), or in the user's $HOME/.terminfo  directory  (if  it  exists),  or
       (finally) anywhere in the system's file tree of compiled entries.

       The  error  messages from this tic have the same format as GNU C error messages, and can be parsed by
       GNU Emacs's compile facility.

       The -C, -G, -I, -N, -R, -T, -V, -a, -e, -f, -g, -o, -r, -s, -t and -x options are not supported under
       SVr4.  The SVr4 -c mode does not report bad use links.

       System  V does not compile entries to or read entries from your $HOME/.terminfo directory unless TER-MINFO TERMINFO
       MINFO is explicitly set to it.

FILES
       /usr/share/terminfo/?/*
            Compiled terminal description database.

SEE ALSO
       infocmp(1M), captoinfo(1M), infotocap(1M), toe(1M), curses(3X), terminfo(5).



                                                                                                     tic(1M)

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