1termcap(5) File Formats Manual termcap(5)
2
6 termcap - terminal capability database
7
9 The termcap database is an obsolete facility for describing the capa‐
10 bilities of character-cell terminals and printers. It is retained only
11 for compatibility with old programs; new programs should use the ter‐
12 minfo(5) database and associated libraries.
13 /etc/termcap is an ASCII file (the database master) that lists the ca‐
15 pabilities of many different types of terminals. Programs can read
16 termcap to find the particular escape codes needed to control the vis‐
17 ual attributes of the terminal actually in use. (Other aspects of the
18 terminal are handled by stty(1).) The termcap database is indexed on
19 the TERM environment variable.
20 Termcap entries must be defined on a single logical line, with '\' used
22 to suppress the newline. Fields are separated by ':'. The first field
23 of each entry starts at the left-hand margin, and contains a list of
24 names for the terminal, separated by '|'.
25 The first subfield may (in BSD termcap entries from 4.3BSD and earlier)
27 contain a short name consisting of two characters. This short name may
28 consist of capital or small letters. In 4.4BSD, termcap entries this
29 field is omitted.
30 The second subfield (first, in the newer 4.4BSD format) contains the
32 name used by the environment variable TERM. It should be spelled in
33 lowercase letters. Selectable hardware capabilities should be marked
34 by appending a hyphen and a suffix to this name. See below for an ex‐
35 ample. Usual suffixes are w (more than 80 characters wide), am (auto‐
36 matic margins), nam (no automatic margins), and rv (reverse video dis‐
37 play). The third subfield contains a long and descriptive name for
38 this termcap entry.
39 Subsequent fields contain the terminal capabilities; any continued ca‐
41 pability lines must be indented one tab from the left margin.
42 Although there is no defined order, it is suggested to write first
44 boolean, then numeric, and then string capabilities, each sorted alpha‐
45 betically without looking at lower or upper spelling. Capabilities of
46 similar functions can be written in one line.
47 Example for:
49 Head line: vt|vt101|DEC VT 101 terminal in 80 character mode:\
51 Head line: Vt|vt101-w|DEC VT 101 terminal in (wide) 132 character mode:\
52 Boolean: :bs:\
53 Numeric: :co#80:\
54 String: :sr=\E[H:\
55 Boolean capabilities
57 5i Printer will not echo on screen
58 am Automatic margins which means automatic line wrap
59 bs Control-H (8 dec.) performs a backspace
60 bw Backspace on left margin wraps to previous line and right margin
61 da Display retained above screen
62 db Display retained below screen
63 eo A space erases all characters at cursor position
64 es Escape sequences and special characters work in status line
65 gn Generic device
66 hc This is a hardcopy terminal
67 HC The cursor is hard to see when not on bottom line
68 hs Has a status line
69 hz Hazeltine bug, the terminal can not print tilde characters
70 in Terminal inserts null bytes, not spaces, to fill whitespace
71 km Terminal has a meta key
72 mi Cursor movement works in insert mode
73 ms Cursor movement works in standout/underline mode
74 NP No pad character
75 NR ti does not reverse te
76 nx No padding, must use XON/XOFF
77 os Terminal can overstrike
78 ul Terminal underlines although it can not overstrike
79 xb Beehive glitch, f1 sends ESCAPE, f2 sends ^C
80 xn Newline/wraparound glitch
81 xo Terminal uses xon/xoff protocol
82 xs Text typed over standout text will be displayed in standout
83 xt Teleray glitch, destructive tabs and odd standout mode
84 Numeric capabilities
86 co Number of columns
87 dB Delay in milliseconds for backspace on hardcopy terminals
88 dC Delay in milliseconds for carriage return on hardcopy terminals
89 dF Delay in milliseconds for form feed on hardcopy terminals
90 dN Delay in milliseconds for new line on hardcopy terminals
91 dT Delay in milliseconds for tabulator stop on hardcopy terminals
92 dV Delay in milliseconds for vertical tabulator stop on
93 hardcopy terminals
94 it Difference between tab positions
95 lh Height of soft labels
96 lm Lines of memory
97 lw Width of soft labels
98 li Number of lines
99 Nl Number of soft labels
100 pb Lowest baud rate which needs padding
101 sg Standout glitch
102 ug Underline glitch
103 vt virtual terminal number
104 ws Width of status line if different from screen width
105 String capabilities
107 !1 shifted save key
108 !2 shifted suspend key
109 !3 shifted undo key
110 #1 shifted help key
111 #2 shifted home key
112 #3 shifted input key
113 #4 shifted cursor left key
114 %0 redo key
115 %1 help key
116 %2 mark key
117 %3 message key
118 %4 move key
119 %5 next-object key
120 %6 open key
121 %7 options key
122 %8 previous-object key
123 %9 print key
124 %a shifted message key
125 %b shifted move key
126 %c shifted next key
127 %d shifted options key
128 %e shifted previous key
129 %f shifted print key
130 %g shifted redo key
131 %h shifted replace key
132 %i shifted cursor right key
133 %j shifted resume key
134 &0 shifted cancel key
135 &1 reference key
136 &2 refresh key
137 &3 replace key
138 &4 restart key
139 &5 resume key
140 &6 save key
141 &7 suspend key
142 &8 undo key
143 &9 shifted begin key
144 *0 shifted find key
145 *1 shifted command key
146 *2 shifted copy key
147 *3 shifted create key
148 *4 shifted delete character
149 *5 shifted delete line
150 *6 select key
151 *7 shifted end key
152 *8 shifted clear line key
153 *9 shifted exit key
154 @0 find key
155 @1 begin key
156 @2 cancel key
157 @3 close key
158 @4 command key
159 @5 copy key
160 @6 create key
161 @7 end key
162 @8 enter/send key
163 @9 exit key
164 al Insert one line
165 AL Insert %1 lines
166 ac Pairs of block graphic characters to map alternate character set
167 ae End alternative character set
168 as Start alternative character set for block graphic characters
169 bc Backspace, if not ^H
170 bl Audio bell
171 bt Move to previous tab stop
172 cb Clear from beginning of line to cursor
173 cc Dummy command character
174 cd Clear to end of screen
175 ce Clear to end of line
176 ch Move cursor horizontally only to column %1
177 cl Clear screen and cursor home
178 cm Cursor move to row %1 and column %2 (on screen)
179 CM Move cursor to row %1 and column %2 (in memory)
180 cr Carriage return
181 cs Scroll region from line %1 to %2
182 ct Clear tabs
183 cv Move cursor vertically only to line %1
184 dc Delete one character
185 DC Delete %1 characters
186 dl Delete one line
187 DL Delete %1 lines
188 dm Begin delete mode
189 do Cursor down one line
190 DO Cursor down #1 lines
191 ds Disable status line
192 eA Enable alternate character set
193 ec Erase %1 characters starting at cursor
194 ed End delete mode
195 ei End insert mode
196 ff Formfeed character on hardcopy terminals
197 fs Return character to its position before going to status line
198 F1 The string sent by function key f11
199 F2 The string sent by function key f12
200 F3 The string sent by function key f13
201 ... ...
202 F9 The string sent by function key f19
203 FA The string sent by function key f20
204 FB The string sent by function key f21
205 ... ...
206 FZ The string sent by function key f45
207 Fa The string sent by function key f46
208 Fb The string sent by function key f47
209 ... ...
210 Fr The string sent by function key f63
211 hd Move cursor a half line down
212 ho Cursor home
213 hu Move cursor a half line up
214 i1 Initialization string 1 at login
215 i3 Initialization string 3 at login
216 is Initialization string 2 at login
217 ic Insert one character
218 IC Insert %1 characters
219 if Initialization file
220 im Begin insert mode
221 ip Insert pad time and needed special characters after insert
222 iP Initialization program
223 K1 upper left key on keypad
224 K2 center key on keypad
225 K3 upper right key on keypad
226 K4 bottom left key on keypad
227 K5 bottom right key on keypad
228 k0 Function key 0
229 k1 Function key 1
230 k2 Function key 2
231 k3 Function key 3
232 k4 Function key 4
233 k5 Function key 5
234 k6 Function key 6
235 k7 Function key 7
236 k8 Function key 8
237 k9 Function key 9
238 k; Function key 10
239 ka Clear all tabs key
240 kA Insert line key
241 kb Backspace key
242 kB Back tab stop
243 kC Clear screen key
244 kd Cursor down key
245 kD Key for delete character under cursor
246 ke turn keypad off
247 kE Key for clear to end of line
248 kF Key for scrolling forward/down
249 kh Cursor home key
250 kH Cursor hown down key
251 kI Insert character/Insert mode key
252 kl Cursor left key
253 kL Key for delete line
254 kM Key for exit insert mode
255 kN Key for next page
256 kP Key for previous page
257 kr Cursor right key
258 kR Key for scrolling backward/up
259 ks Turn keypad on
260 kS Clear to end of screen key
261 kt Clear this tab key
262 kT Set tab here key
263 ku Cursor up key
264 l0 Label of zeroth function key, if not f0
265 l1 Label of first function key, if not f1
266 l2 Label of first function key, if not f2
267 ... ...
268 la Label of tenth function key, if not f10
269 le Cursor left one character
270 ll Move cursor to lower left corner
271 LE Cursor left %1 characters
272 LF Turn soft labels off
273 LO Turn soft labels on
274 mb Start blinking
275 MC Clear soft margins
276 md Start bold mode
277 me End all mode like so, us, mb, md, and mr
278 mh Start half bright mode
279 mk Dark mode (Characters invisible)
280 ML Set left soft margin
281 mm Put terminal in meta mode
282 mo Put terminal out of meta mode
283 mp Turn on protected attribute
284 mr Start reverse mode
285 MR Set right soft margin
286 nd Cursor right one character
287 nw Carriage return command
288 pc Padding character
289 pf Turn printer off
290 pk Program key %1 to send string %2 as if typed by user
291 pl Program key %1 to execute string %2 in local mode
292 pn Program soft label %1 to show string %2
293 po Turn the printer on
294 pO Turn the printer on for %1 (<256) bytes
295 ps Print screen contents on printer
296 px Program key %1 to send string %2 to computer
297 r1 Reset string 1 to set terminal to sane modes
298 r2 Reset string 2 to set terminal to sane modes
299 r3 Reset string 3 to set terminal to sane modes
300 RA disable automatic margins
301 rc Restore saved cursor position
302 rf Reset string filename
303 RF Request for input from terminal
304 RI Cursor right %1 characters
305 rp Repeat character %1 for %2 times
306 rP Padding after character sent in replace mode
307 rs Reset string
308 RX Turn off XON/XOFF flow control
309 sa Set %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9 attributes
310 SA enable automatic margins
311 sc Save cursor position
312 se End standout mode
313 sf Normal scroll one line
314 SF Normal scroll %1 lines
315 so Start standout mode
316 sr Reverse scroll
317 SR scroll back %1 lines
318 st Set tabulator stop in all rows at current column
319 SX Turn on XON/XOFF flow control
320 ta move to next hardware tab
321 tc Read in terminal description from another entry
322 te End program that uses cursor motion
323 ti Begin program that uses cursor motion
324 ts Move cursor to column %1 of status line
325 uc Underline character under cursor and move cursor right
326 ue End underlining
327 up Cursor up one line
328 UP Cursor up %1 lines
329 us Start underlining
330 vb Visible bell
331 ve Normal cursor visible
332 vi Cursor invisible
333 vs Standout cursor
334 wi Set window from line %1 to %2 and column %3 to %4
335 XF XOFF character if not ^S
336 There are several ways of defining the control codes for string capa‐
338 bilities:
339 Every normal character represents itself, except '^', '\', and '%'.
341 A ^x means Control-x. Control-A equals 1 decimal.
343 \x means a special code. x can be one of the following characters:
345 E Escape (27)
346 n Linefeed (10)
347 r Carriage return (13)
348 t Tabulation (9)
349 b Backspace (8)
350 f Form feed (12)
351 0 Null character. A \xxx specifies the octal character xxx.
352 i Increments parameters by one.
354 r Single parameter capability
356 + Add value of next character to this parameter and do binary out‐
358 put
359 2 Do ASCII output of this parameter with a field with of 2
361 d Do ASCII output of this parameter with a field with of 3
363 % Print a '%'
365 If you use binary output, then you should avoid the null character
367 ('\0') because it terminates the string. You should reset tabulator
368 expansion if a tabulator can be the binary output of a parameter.
369 Warning:
371 The above metacharacters for parameters may be wrong: they docu‐
372 ment Minix termcap which may not be compatible with Linux term‐
373 cap.
374 The block graphic characters can be specified by three string capabili‐
376 ties:
377 as start the alternative charset
379 ae end the alternative charset
381 ac pairs of characters. The first character is the name of the
383 block graphic symbol and the second characters is its defini‐
384 tion.
385 The following names are available:
387 + right arrow (>)
389 , left arrow (<)
390 . down arrow (v)
391 0 full square (#)
392 I lantern (#)
393 - upper arrow (^)
394 ' rhombus (+)
395 a chess board (:)
396 f degree (')
397 g plus-minus (#)
398 h square (#)
399 j right bottom corner (+)
400 k right upper corner (+)
401 l left upper corner (+)
402 m left bottom corner (+)
403 n cross (+)
404 o upper horizontal line (-)
405 q middle horizontal line (-)
406 s bottom horizontal line (_)
407 t left tee (+)
408 u right tee (+)
409 v bottom tee (+)
410 w normal tee (+)
411 x vertical line (|)
412 ~ paragraph (???)
413 The values in parentheses are suggested defaults which are used by the
415 curses library, if the capabilities are missing.
416
418 ncurses(3), termcap(3), terminfo(5)
419Linux man-pages 6.04 2023-03-08 termcap(5)