1CHARMAP(5) Linux User Manual CHARMAP(5)
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6 charmap - character symbols to define character encodings
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9 A character set description (charmap) defines a character set of avail‐
10 able characters and their encodings. All supported character sets
11 should have the portable character set as a proper subset.
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13 Syntax
14 The charmap file starts with a header, that may consist of the follow‐
15 ing keywords:
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17 <codeset>
18 is followed by the name of the codeset.
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20 <mb_cur_max>
21 is followed by the max number of bytes for a multibyte-charac‐
22 ter. Multibyte characters are currently not supported. The
23 default value is 1.
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25 <mb_cur_min>
26 is followed by the min number of bytes for a character. This
27 value must be less or equal than mb_cur_max. If not specified,
28 it defaults to mb_cur_max.
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30 <escape_char>
31 is followed by a character that should be used as the escape-
32 character for the rest of the file to mark characters that
33 should be interpreted in a special way. It defaults to the
34 backslash ( \ ).
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36 <comment_char>
37 is followed by a character that will be used as the comment-
38 character for the rest of the file. It defaults to the number
39 sign ( # ).
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41 The charmap-definition itself starts with the keyword CHARMAP in column
42 1.
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44 The following lines may have one of the two following forms to define
45 the character-encodings:
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47 <symbolic-name> <encoding> <comments>
48 This form defines exactly one character and its encoding.
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50 <symbolic-name>...<symbolic-name> <encoding> <comments>
51 This form defines a couple of characters. This is only useful
52 for multibyte-characters, which are currently not implemented.
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54 The last line in a charmap-definition file must contain END CHARMAP.
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56 Symbolic Names
57 A symbolic name for a character contains only characters of the porta‐
58 ble character set. The name itself is enclosed between angle brackets.
59 Characters following an <escape_char> are interpreted as itself; for
60 example, the sequence <\\\>> represents the symbolic name \> enclosed
61 in angle brackets.
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63 Character Encoding
64 The encoding may be in each of the following three forms:
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66 <escape_char>d<number>
67 with a decimal number
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69 <escape_char>x<number>
70 with a hexadecimal number
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72 <escape_char><number>
73 with an octal number.
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76 /usr/share/i18n/charmaps/*
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79 POSIX.2.
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82 locale(1), localedef(1), localeconv(3), setlocale(3), locale(5)
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85 This page is part of release 3.22 of the Linux man-pages project. A
86 description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
87 be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
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91 1994-11-28 CHARMAP(5)