1infocmp(1M) infocmp(1M)
2
6 infocmp - compare or print out terminfo descriptions
7
9 infocmp [-1CDEFGIKLTUVWcdegilnpqrtux]
10 [-v n] [-s d| i| l| c] [-Q n] [-R subset]
11 [-w width] [-A directory] [-B directory]
12 [termname...]
13
15 infocmp can be used to compare a binary terminfo entry with other ter‐
16 minfo entries, rewrite a terminfo description to take advantage of the
17 use= terminfo field, or print out a terminfo description from the
18 binary file (term) in a variety of formats. In all cases, the boolean
19 fields will be printed first, followed by the numeric fields, followed
20 by the string fields.
21 Default Options
23 If no options are specified and zero or one termnames are specified,
24 the -I option will be assumed. If more than one termname is specified,
25 the -d option will be assumed.
26 Comparison Options [-d] [-c] [-n]
28 infocmp compares the terminfo description of the first terminal
29 termname with each of the descriptions given by the entries for the
30 other terminal's termnames. If a capability is defined for only one of
31 the terminals, the value returned depends on the type of the capabil‐
32 ity:
33 · F for missing boolean variables
35 · NULL for missing integer or string variables
37 Use the -q option to show the distinction between absent and cancelled
39 capabilities.
40 These options produce a list which you can use to compare two or more
42 terminal descriptions:
43 -d produces a list of each capability that is different between two
45 entries. Each item in the list shows “:” after the capability
46 name, followed by the capability values, separated by a comma.
47 -c produces a list of each capability that is common between two or
49 more entries. Missing capabilities are ignored. Each item in the
50 list shows “=” after the capability name, followed by the capabil‐
51 ity value.
52 The -u option provides a related output, showing the first termi‐
54 nal description rewritten to use the second as a building block
55 via the “use=” clause.
56 -n produces a list of each capability that is in none of the given
58 entries. Each item in the list shows “!” before the capability
59 name.
60 Normally only the conventional capabilities are shown. Use the -x
62 option to add the BSD-compatibility capabilities (names prefixed
63 with “OT”).
64 If no termnames are given, infocmp uses the environment variable
66 TERM for each of the termnames.
67 Source Listing Options [-I] [-L] [-C] [-r]
69 The -I, -L, and -C options will produce a source listing for each ter‐
70 minal named.
71 -I use the terminfo names
73 -L use the long C variable name listed in <term.h>
74 -C use the termcap names
75 -r when using -C, put out all capabilities in termcap form
76 -K modifies the -C option, improving BSD-compatibility.
77 If no termnames are given, the environment variable TERM will be used
79 for the terminal name.
80 The source produced by the -C option may be used directly as a termcap
82 entry, but not all parameterized strings can be changed to the termcap
83 format. infocmp will attempt to convert most of the parameterized
84 information, and anything not converted will be plainly marked in the
85 output and commented out. These should be edited by hand.
86 For best results when converting to termcap format, you should use both
88 -C and -r. Normally a termcap description is limited to 1023 bytes.
89 infocmp trims away less essential parts to make it fit. If you are
90 converting to one of the (rare) termcap implementations which accept an
91 unlimited size of termcap, you may want to add the -T option. More
92 often however, you must help the termcap implementation, and trim
93 excess whitespace (use the -0 option for that).
94 All padding information for strings will be collected together and
96 placed at the beginning of the string where termcap expects it. Manda‐
97 tory padding (padding information with a trailing “/”) will become
98 optional.
99 All termcap variables no longer supported by terminfo, but which are
101 derivable from other terminfo variables, will be output. Not all ter‐
102 minfo capabilities will be translated; only those variables which were
103 part of termcap will normally be output. Specifying the -r option will
104 take off this restriction, allowing all capabilities to be output in
105 termcap form. Normally you would use both the -C and -r options. The
106 actual format used incorporates some improvements for escaped charac‐
107 ters from terminfo format. For a stricter BSD-compatible translation,
108 use the -K option rather than -C.
109 Note that because padding is collected to the beginning of the capabil‐
111 ity, not all capabilities are output. Mandatory padding is not sup‐
112 ported. Because termcap strings are not as flexible, it is not always
113 possible to convert a terminfo string capability into an equivalent
114 termcap format. A subsequent conversion of the termcap file back into
115 terminfo format will not necessarily reproduce the original terminfo
116 source.
117 Some common terminfo parameter sequences, their termcap equivalents,
119 and some terminal types which commonly have such sequences, are:
120 terminfo termcap Representative Terminals
122 ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
123 %p1%c %. adm
124 %p1%d %d hp, ANSI standard, vt100
125 %p1%'x'%+%c %+x concept
126 %i %iq ANSI standard, vt100
127 %p1%?%'x'%>%t%p1%'y'%+%; %>xy concept
128 %p2 is printed before %p1 %r hp
129 Use= Option [-u]
131 The -u option produces a terminfo source description of the first ter‐
132 minal termname which is relative to the sum of the descriptions given
133 by the entries for the other terminals termnames. It does this by ana‐
134 lyzing the differences between the first termname and the other
135 termnames and producing a description with use= fields for the other
136 terminals. In this manner, it is possible to retrofit generic terminfo
137 entries into a terminal's description. Or, if two similar terminals
138 exist, but were coded at different times or by different people so that
139 each description is a full description, using infocmp will show what
140 can be done to change one description to be relative to the other.
141 A capability will get printed with an at-sign (@) if it no longer
143 exists in the first termname, but one of the other termname entries
144 contains a value for it. A capability's value gets printed if the
145 value in the first termname is not found in any of the other termname
146 entries, or if the first of the other termname entries that has this
147 capability gives a different value for the capability than that in the
148 first termname.
149 The order of the other termname entries is significant. Since the ter‐
151 minfo compiler tic does a left-to-right scan of the capabilities, spec‐
152 ifying two use= entries that contain differing entries for the same
153 capabilities will produce different results depending on the order that
154 the entries are given in. infocmp will flag any such inconsistencies
155 between the other termname entries as they are found.
156 Alternatively, specifying a capability after a use= entry that contains
158 that capability will cause the second specification to be ignored.
159 Using infocmp to recreate a description can be a useful check to make
160 sure that everything was specified correctly in the original source
161 description.
162 Another error that does not cause incorrect compiled files, but will
164 slow down the compilation time, is specifying extra use= fields that
165 are superfluous. infocmp will flag any other termname use= fields that
166 were not needed.
167 Changing Databases [-A directory] [-B directory]
169 Like other ncurses utilities, infocmp looks for the terminal descrip‐
170 tions in several places. You can use the TERMINFO and TERMINFO_DIRS
171 environment variables to override the compiled-in default list of
172 places to search (see curses(3X) for details).
173 You can also use the options -A and -B to override the list of places
175 to search when comparing terminal descriptions:
176 · The -A option sets the location for the first termname
178 · The -B option sets the location for the other termnames.
180 Using these options, it is possible to compare descriptions for a ter‐
182 minal with the same name located in two different databases. For
183 instance, you can use this feature for comparing descriptions for the
184 same terminal created by different people.
185 Other Options
187 -0 causes the fields to be printed on one line, without wrapping.
188 -1 causes the fields to be printed out one to a line. Otherwise, the
190 fields will be printed several to a line to a maximum width of 60
191 characters.
192 -a tells infocmp to retain commented-out capabilities rather than
194 discarding them. Capabilities are commented by prefixing them
195 with a period.
196 -D tells infocmp to print the database locations that it knows about,
198 and exit.
199 -E Dump the capabilities of the given terminal as tables, needed in
201 the C initializer for a TERMTYPE structure (the terminal capabil‐
202 ity structure in the <term.h>). This option is useful for prepar‐
203 ing versions of the curses library hardwired for a given terminal
204 type. The tables are all declared static, and are named according
205 to the type and the name of the corresponding terminal entry.
206 Before ncurses 5.0, the split between the -e and -E options was
208 not needed; but support for extended names required making the
209 arrays of terminal capabilities separate from the TERMTYPE struc‐
210 ture.
211 -e Dump the capabilities of the given terminal as a C initializer for
213 a TERMTYPE structure (the terminal capability structure in the
214 <term.h>). This option is useful for preparing versions of the
215 curses library hardwired for a given terminal type.
216 -F compare terminfo files. This assumes that two following arguments
218 are filenames. The files are searched for pairwise matches
219 between entries, with two entries considered to match if any of
220 their names do. The report printed to standard output lists
221 entries with no matches in the other file, and entries with more
222 than one match. For entries with exactly one match it includes a
223 difference report. Normally, to reduce the volume of the report,
224 use references are not resolved before looking for differences,
225 but resolution can be forced by also specifying -r.
226 -f Display complex terminfo strings which contain if/then/else/endif
228 expressions indented for readability.
229 -G Display constant literals in decimal form rather than their char‐
231 acter equivalents.
232 -g Display constant character literals in quoted form rather than
234 their decimal equivalents.
235 -i Analyze the initialization (is1, is2, is3), and reset (rs1, rs2,
237 rs3), strings in the entry, as well as those used for start‐
238 ing/stopping cursor-positioning mode (smcup, rmcup) as well as
239 starting/stopping keymap mode (smkx, rmkx).
240 For each string, the code tries to analyze it into actions in
242 terms of the other capabilities in the entry, certain X3.64/ISO
243 6429/ECMA-48 capabilities, and certain DEC VT-series private modes
244 (the set of recognized special sequences has been selected for
245 completeness over the existing terminfo database). Each report
246 line consists of the capability name, followed by a colon and
247 space, followed by a printable expansion of the capability string
248 with sections matching recognized actions translated into
249 {}-bracketed descriptions.
250 Here is a list of the DEC/ANSI special sequences recognized:
252 Action Meaning
254 ─────────────────────────────────────────
255 RIS full reset
256 SC save cursor
257 RC restore cursor
258 LL home-down
259 RSR reset scroll region
260 ─────────────────────────────────────────
261 DECSTR soft reset (VT320)
262 S7C1T 7-bit controls (VT220)
263 ─────────────────────────────────────────
264 ISO DEC G0 enable DEC graphics for G0
266 ISO UK G0 enable UK chars for G0
267 ISO US G0 enable US chars for G0
268 ISO DEC G1 enable DEC graphics for G1
269 ISO UK G1 enable UK chars for G1
270 ISO US G1 enable US chars for G1
271 ─────────────────────────────────────────
272 DECPAM application keypad mode
273 DECPNM normal keypad mode
274 DECANSI enter ANSI mode
275 ─────────────────────────────────────────
276 ECMA[+-]AM keyboard action mode
277 ECMA[+-]IRM insert replace mode
278 ECMA[+-]SRM send receive mode
279 ECMA[+-]LNM linefeed mode
280 ─────────────────────────────────────────
281 DEC[+-]CKM application cursor keys
282 DEC[+-]ANM set VT52 mode
283 DEC[+-]COLM 132-column mode
284 DEC[+-]SCLM smooth scroll
285 DEC[+-]SCNM reverse video mode
286 DEC[+-]OM origin mode
287 DEC[+-]AWM wraparound mode
288 DEC[+-]ARM auto-repeat mode
289 It also recognizes a SGR action corresponding to ANSI/ISO
291 6429/ECMA Set Graphics Rendition, with the values NORMAL, BOLD,
292 UNDERLINE, BLINK, and REVERSE. All but NORMAL may be prefixed
293 with
294 · “+” (turn on) or
296 · “-” (turn off).
298 An SGR0 designates an empty highlight sequence (equivalent to
300 {SGR:NORMAL}).
301 -l Set output format to terminfo.
303 -p Ignore padding specifications when comparing strings.
305 -Q n Rather than show source in terminfo (text) format, print the com‐
307 piled (binary) format in hexadecimal or base64 form, depending on
308 the option's value:
309 1 hexadecimal
311 2 base64
313 3 hexadecimal and base64
315 For example, this prints the compiled terminfo value as a string
317 which could be assigned to the TERMINFO environment variable:
318 infocmp -0 -q -Q2
320 -q This makes the output a little shorter:
322 · Make the comparison listing shorter by omitting subheadings,
324 and using “-” for absent capabilities, “@” for canceled rather
325 than “NULL”.
326 · However, show differences between absent and cancelled capa‐
328 bilities.
329 · Omit the “Reconstructed from” comment for source listings.
331 -Rsubset
333 Restrict output to a given subset. This option is for use with
334 archaic versions of terminfo like those on SVr1, Ultrix, or HP/UX
335 that do not support the full set of SVR4/XSI Curses terminfo; and
336 variants such as AIX that have their own extensions incompatible
337 with SVr4/XSI.
338 · Available terminfo subsets are “SVr1”, “Ultrix”, “HP”, and
340 “AIX”; see terminfo(5) for details.
341 · You can also choose the subset “BSD” which selects only capa‐
343 bilities with termcap equivalents recognized by 4.4BSD. The
344 -C option sets the “BSD” subset as a side-effect.
345 · If you select any other value for -R, it is the same as no
347 subset, i.e., all capabilities are used. The -I option like‐
348 wise selects no subset as a side-effect.
349 -s [d|i|l|c]
351 The -s option sorts the fields within each type according to the
352 argument below:
353 d leave fields in the order that they are stored in the ter‐
355 minfo database.
356 i sort by terminfo name.
358 l sort by the long C variable name.
360 c sort by the termcap name.
362 If the -s option is not given, the fields printed out will be
364 sorted alphabetically by the terminfo name within each type,
365 except in the case of the -C or the -L options, which cause the
366 sorting to be done by the termcap name or the long C variable
367 name, respectively.
368 -T eliminates size-restrictions on the generated text. This is
370 mainly useful for testing and analysis, since the compiled
371 descriptions are limited (e.g., 1023 for termcap, 4096 for ter‐
372 minfo).
373 -t tells tic to discard commented-out capabilities. Normally when
375 translating from terminfo to termcap, untranslatable capabilities
376 are commented-out.
377 -U tells infocmp to not post-process the data after parsing the
379 source file. This feature helps when comparing the actual con‐
380 tents of two source files, since it excludes the inferences that
381 infocmp makes to fill in missing data.
382 -V reports the version of ncurses which was used in this program, and
384 exits.
385 -v n prints out tracing information on standard error as the program
387 runs.
388 The optional parameter n is a number from 1 to 10, inclusive,
390 indicating the desired level of detail of information. If ncurses
391 is built without tracing support, the optional parameter is
392 ignored.
393 -W By itself, the -w option will not force long strings to be
395 wrapped. Use the -W option to do this.
396 -w width
398 changes the output to width characters.
399 -x print information for user-defined capabilities (see user_caps(5).
401 These are extensions to the terminfo repertoire which can be
402 loaded using the -x option of tic.
403
405 /usr/share/terminfo Compiled terminal description database.
406
408 Although System V Release 2 provided a terminfo library, it had no doc‐
409 umented tool for decompiling the terminal descriptions. Tony Hansen
410 (AT&T) wrote the first infocmp in early 1984, for System V Release 3.
411 Eric Raymond used the AT&T documentation in 1995 to provide an equiva‐
413 lent infocmp for ncurses. In addition, he added a few new features
414 such as:
415 · the -e option, to support fallback (compiled-in) terminal descrip‐
417 tions
418 · the -i option, to help with analysis
420 Later, Thomas Dickey added the -x (user-defined capabilities) option,
422 and the -E option to support fallback entries with user-defined capa‐
423 bilities.
424 For a complete list, see the EXTENSIONS section.
426 In 2010, Roy Marples provided an infocmp program for NetBSD. It is
428 less capable than the SVr4 or ncurses versions (e.g., it lacks the
429 sorting options documented in X/Open), but does include the -x option
430 adapted from ncurses.
431
433 X/Open Curses, Issue 7 (2009) provides a description of infocmp. It
434 does not mention the options used for converting to termcap format.
435
437 The -0, -1, -E, -F, -G, -Q, -R, -T, -V, -a, -e, -f, -g, -i, -l, -p, -q
438 and -t options are not supported in SVr4 curses.
439 SVr4 infocmp does not distinguish between absent and cancelled capabil‐
441 ities. Also, it shows missing integer capabilities as -1 (the internal
442 value used to represent missing integers). This implementation shows
443 those as “NULL”, for consistency with missing strings.
444 The -r option's notion of “termcap” capabilities is System V Release
446 4's. Actual BSD curses versions will have a more restricted set. To
447 see only the 4.4BSD set, use -r -RBSD.
448
450 The -F option of infocmp(1M) should be a toe(1M) mode.
451
453 captoinfo(1M), infotocap(1M), tic(1M), toe(1M), curses(3X), ter‐
454 minfo(5). user_caps(5).
455 https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html
457 This describes ncurses version 6.1 (patch 20191109).
459
461 Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com> and
462 Thomas E. Dickey <dickey@invisible-island.net>
463 infocmp(1M)