1CHARMAP(5)                 Linux Programmer's Manual                CHARMAP(5)
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NAME

6       charmap - character set description file
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DESCRIPTION

9       A  character set description (charmap) defines all available characters
10       and their encodings in a character set.  localedef(1) can use  charmaps
11       to create locale variants for different character sets.
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13   Syntax
14       The charmap file starts with a header that may consist of the following
15       keywords:
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17       <code_set_name>
18              is followed by the name of the character map.
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20       <comment_char>
21              is followed by a character that will  be  used  as  the  comment
22              character  for  the rest of the file.  It defaults to the number
23              sign (#).
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25       <escape_char>
26              is followed by a character that should be  used  as  the  escape
27              character  for  the  rest  of  the  file to mark characters that
28              should be interpreted in a special  way.   It  defaults  to  the
29              backslash (\).
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31       <mb_cur_max>
32              is followed by the maximum number of bytes for a character.  The
33              default value is 1.
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35       <mb_cur_min>
36              is followed by the minimum number  of  bytes  for  a  character.
37              This value must be less than or equal than <mb_cur_max>.  If not
38              specified, it defaults to <mb_cur_max>.
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40       The character set definition section starts with the keyword CHARMAP in
41       the first column.
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43       The  following  lines may have one of the two following forms to define
44       the character set:
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46       <character> byte-sequence comment
47              This form defines exactly one character and its  byte  sequence,
48              comment being optional.
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50       <character>..<character> byte-sequence comment
51              This  form defines a character range and its byte sequence, com‐
52              ment being optional.
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54       The character set definition section ends with the string END CHARMAP.
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56       The character set definition section may optionally be  followed  by  a
57       section to define widths of characters.
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59       The  WIDTH_DEFAULT  keyword can be used to define the default width for
60       all characters not explicitly listed.  The default character  width  is
61       1.
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63       The  width  section  for  individual characters starts with the keyword
64       WIDTH in the first column.
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66       The following lines may have one of the two following forms  to  define
67       the widths of the characters:
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69       <character> width
70              This form defines the width of exactly one character.
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72       <character>...<character> width
73              This form defines the width for all the characters in the range.
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75       The width definition section ends with the string END WIDTH.
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FILES

78       /usr/share/i18n/charmaps
79              Usual default character map path.
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CONFORMING TO

82       POSIX.2.
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EXAMPLES

85       The Euro sign is defined as follows in the UTF-8 charmap:
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87       <U20AC>     /xe2/x82/xac EURO SIGN
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SEE ALSO

90       iconv(1), locale(1), localedef(1), locale(5), charsets(7)
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COLOPHON

93       This  page  is  part of release 5.12 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
94       description of the project, information about reporting bugs,  and  the
95       latest     version     of     this    page,    can    be    found    at
96       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
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100GNU                               2020-06-09                        CHARMAP(5)