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 bi‐
18 nary 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 in‐
84 formation, 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 of‐
92 ten however, you must help the termcap implementation, and trim excess
93 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 op‐
98 tional.
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 be printed with an at-sign (@) if it no longer exists
143 in the first termname, but one of the other termname entries contains a
144 value for it. A capability's value will be printed if the value in the
145 first termname is not found in any of the other termname entries, or if
146 the first of the other termname entries that has this capability gives
147 a different value for the capability than that in the first termname.
148 The order of the other termname entries is significant. Since the ter‐
150 minfo compiler tic does a left-to-right scan of the capabilities, spec‐
151 ifying two use= entries that contain differing entries for the same ca‐
152 pabilities will produce different results depending on the order that
153 the entries are given in. infocmp will flag any such inconsistencies
154 between the other termname entries as they are found.
155 Alternatively, specifying a capability after a use= entry that contains
157 that capability will cause the second specification to be ignored. Us‐
158 ing infocmp to recreate a description can be a useful check to make
159 sure that everything was specified correctly in the original source de‐
160 scription.
161 Another error that does not cause incorrect compiled files, but will
163 slow down the compilation time, is specifying extra use= fields that
164 are superfluous. infocmp will flag any other termname use= fields that
165 were not needed.
166 Changing Databases [-A directory] [-B directory]
168 Like other ncurses utilities, infocmp looks for the terminal descrip‐
169 tions in several places. You can use the TERMINFO and TERMINFO_DIRS
170 environment variables to override the compiled-in default list of
171 places to search (see curses(3X) for details).
172 You can also use the options -A and -B to override the list of places
174 to search when comparing terminal descriptions:
175 • The -A option sets the location for the first termname
177 • The -B option sets the location for the other termnames.
179 Using these options, it is possible to compare descriptions for a ter‐
181 minal with the same name located in two different databases. For in‐
182 stance, you can use this feature for comparing descriptions for the
183 same terminal created by different people.
184 Other Options
186 -0 causes the fields to be printed on one line, without wrapping.
187 -1 causes the fields to be printed out one to a line. Otherwise, the
189 fields will be printed several to a line to a maximum width of 60
190 characters.
191 -a tells infocmp to retain commented-out capabilities rather than
193 discarding them. Capabilities are commented by prefixing them
194 with a period.
195 -D tells infocmp to print the database locations that it knows about,
197 and exit.
198 -E Dump the capabilities of the given terminal as tables, needed in
200 the C initializer for a TERMTYPE structure (the terminal capabil‐
201 ity structure in the <term.h>). This option is useful for prepar‐
202 ing versions of the curses library hardwired for a given terminal
203 type. The tables are all declared static, and are named according
204 to the type and the name of the corresponding terminal entry.
205 Before ncurses 5.0, the split between the -e and -E options was
207 not needed; but support for extended names required making the ar‐
208 rays of terminal capabilities separate from the TERMTYPE struc‐
209 ture.
210 -e Dump the capabilities of the given terminal as a C initializer for
212 a TERMTYPE structure (the terminal capability structure in the
213 <term.h>). This option is useful for preparing versions of the
214 curses library hardwired for a given terminal type.
215 -F compare terminfo files. This assumes that two following arguments
217 are filenames. The files are searched for pairwise matches be‐
218 tween entries, with two entries considered to match if any of
219 their names do. The report printed to standard output lists en‐
220 tries with no matches in the other file, and entries with more
221 than one match. For entries with exactly one match it includes a
222 difference report. Normally, to reduce the volume of the report,
223 use references are not resolved before looking for differences,
224 but resolution can be forced by also specifying -r.
225 -f Display complex terminfo strings which contain if/then/else/endif
227 expressions indented for readability.
228 -G Display constant literals in decimal form rather than their char‐
230 acter equivalents.
231 -g Display constant character literals in quoted form rather than
233 their decimal equivalents.
234 -i Analyze the initialization (is1, is2, is3), and reset (rs1, rs2,
236 rs3), strings in the entry, as well as those used for start‐
237 ing/stopping cursor-positioning mode (smcup, rmcup) as well as
238 starting/stopping keymap mode (smkx, rmkx).
239 For each string, the code tries to analyze it into actions in
241 terms of the other capabilities in the entry, certain X3.64/ISO
242 6429/ECMA-48 capabilities, and certain DEC VT-series private modes
243 (the set of recognized special sequences has been selected for
244 completeness over the existing terminfo database). Each report
245 line consists of the capability name, followed by a colon and
246 space, followed by a printable expansion of the capability string
247 with sections matching recognized actions translated into
248 {}-bracketed descriptions.
249 Here is a list of the DEC/ANSI special sequences recognized:
251 Action Meaning
253 ─────────────────────────────────────────
254 RIS full reset
255 SC save cursor
256 RC restore cursor
257 LL home-down
258 RSR reset scroll region
259 ─────────────────────────────────────────
260 DECSTR soft reset (VT320)
261 S7C1T 7-bit controls (VT220)
262 ─────────────────────────────────────────
263 ISO DEC G0 enable DEC graphics for G0
264 ISO UK G0 enable UK chars for G0
266 ISO US G0 enable US chars for G0
267 ISO DEC G1 enable DEC graphics for G1
268 ISO UK G1 enable UK chars for G1
269 ISO US G1 enable US chars for G1
270 ─────────────────────────────────────────
271 DECPAM application keypad mode
272 DECPNM normal keypad mode
273 DECANSI enter ANSI mode
274 ─────────────────────────────────────────
275 ECMA[+-]AM keyboard action mode
276 ECMA[+-]IRM insert replace mode
277 ECMA[+-]SRM send receive mode
278 ECMA[+-]LNM linefeed mode
279 ─────────────────────────────────────────
280 DEC[+-]CKM application cursor keys
281 DEC[+-]ANM set VT52 mode
282 DEC[+-]COLM 132-column mode
283 DEC[+-]SCLM smooth scroll
284 DEC[+-]SCNM reverse video mode
285 DEC[+-]OM origin mode
286 DEC[+-]AWM wraparound mode
287 DEC[+-]ARM auto-repeat mode
288 It also recognizes a SGR action corresponding to ANSI/ISO
290 6429/ECMA Set Graphics Rendition, with the values NORMAL, BOLD,
291 UNDERLINE, BLINK, and REVERSE. All but NORMAL may be prefixed
292 with
293 • “+” (turn on) or
295 • “-” (turn off).
297 An SGR0 designates an empty highlight sequence (equivalent to
299 {SGR:NORMAL}).
300 -l Set output format to terminfo.
302 -p Ignore padding specifications when comparing strings.
304 -Q n Rather than show source in terminfo (text) format, print the com‐
306 piled (binary) format in hexadecimal or base64 form, depending on
307 the option's value:
308 1 hexadecimal
310 2 base64
312 3 hexadecimal and base64
314 For example, this prints the compiled terminfo value as a string
316 which could be assigned to the TERMINFO environment variable:
317 infocmp -0 -q -Q2
319 -q This makes the output a little shorter:
321 • Make the comparison listing shorter by omitting subheadings,
323 and using “-” for absent capabilities, “@” for canceled rather
324 than “NULL”.
325 • However, show differences between absent and cancelled capa‐
327 bilities.
328 • Omit the “Reconstructed from” comment for source listings.
330 -Rsubset
332 Restrict output to a given subset. This option is for use with
333 archaic versions of terminfo like those on SVr1, Ultrix, or HP-UX
334 that do not support the full set of SVR4/XSI Curses terminfo; and
335 variants such as AIX that have their own extensions incompatible
336 with SVr4/XSI.
337 • Available terminfo subsets are “SVr1”, “Ultrix”, “HP”, and
339 “AIX”; see terminfo(5) for details.
340 • You can also choose the subset “BSD” which selects only capa‐
342 bilities with termcap equivalents recognized by 4.4BSD.
343 • If you select any other value for -R, it is the same as no
345 subset, i.e., all capabilities are used.
346 A few options override the subset selected with -R, if they are
348 processed later in the command parameters:
349 -C sets the “BSD” subset as a side-effect.
351 -I sets the subset to all capabilities.
353 -r sets the subset to all capabilities.
355 -s [d|i|l|c]
357 The -s option sorts the fields within each type according to the
358 argument below:
359 d leave fields in the order that they are stored in the ter‐
361 minfo database.
362 i sort by terminfo name.
364 l sort by the long C variable name.
366 c sort by the termcap name.
368 If the -s option is not given, the fields printed out will be
370 sorted alphabetically by the terminfo name within each type, ex‐
371 cept in the case of the -C or the -L options, which cause the
372 sorting to be done by the termcap name or the long C variable
373 name, respectively.
374 -T eliminates size-restrictions on the generated text. This is
376 mainly useful for testing and analysis, since the compiled de‐
377 scriptions are limited (e.g., 1023 for termcap, 4096 for ter‐
378 minfo).
379 -t tells tic to discard commented-out capabilities. Normally when
381 translating from terminfo to termcap, untranslatable capabilities
382 are commented-out.
383 -U tells infocmp to not post-process the data after parsing the
385 source file. This feature helps when comparing the actual con‐
386 tents of two source files, since it excludes the inferences that
387 infocmp makes to fill in missing data.
388 -V reports the version of ncurses which was used in this program, and
390 exits.
391 -v n prints out tracing information on standard error as the program
393 runs.
394 The optional parameter n is a number from 1 to 10, inclusive, in‐
396 dicating the desired level of detail of information. If ncurses
397 is built without tracing support, the optional parameter is ig‐
398 nored.
399 -W By itself, the -w option will not force long strings to be
401 wrapped. Use the -W option to do this.
402 -w width
404 changes the output to width characters.
405 -x print information for user-defined capabilities (see user_caps(5).
407 These are extensions to the terminfo repertoire which can be
408 loaded using the -x option of tic.
409
411 /usr/share/terminfo Compiled terminal description database.
412
414 Although System V Release 2 provided a terminfo library, it had no doc‐
415 umented tool for decompiling the terminal descriptions. Tony Hansen
416 (AT&T) wrote the first infocmp in early 1984, for System V Release 3.
417 Eric Raymond used the AT&T documentation in 1995 to provide an equiva‐
419 lent infocmp for ncurses. In addition, he added a few new features
420 such as:
421 • the -e option, to support fallback (compiled-in) terminal descrip‐
423 tions
424 • the -i option, to help with analysis
426 Later, Thomas Dickey added the -x (user-defined capabilities) option,
428 and the -E option to support fallback entries with user-defined capa‐
429 bilities.
430 For a complete list, see the EXTENSIONS section.
432 In 2010, Roy Marples provided an infocmp program for NetBSD. It is
434 less capable than the SVr4 or ncurses versions (e.g., it lacks the
435 sorting options documented in X/Open), but does include the -x option
436 adapted from ncurses.
437
439 X/Open Curses, Issue 7 (2009) provides a description of infocmp. It
440 does not mention the options used for converting to termcap format.
441
443 The -0, -1, -E, -F, -G, -Q, -R, -T, -V, -a, -e, -f, -g, -i, -l, -p, -q
444 and -t options are not supported in SVr4 curses.
445 SVr4 infocmp does not distinguish between absent and cancelled capabil‐
447 ities. Also, it shows missing integer capabilities as -1 (the internal
448 value used to represent missing integers). This implementation shows
449 those as “NULL”, for consistency with missing strings.
450 The -r option's notion of “termcap” capabilities is System V Release
452 4's. Actual BSD curses versions will have a more restricted set. To
453 see only the 4.4BSD set, use -r -RBSD.
454
456 The -F option of infocmp(1M) should be a toe(1M) mode.
457
459 captoinfo(1M), infotocap(1M), tic(1M), toe(1M), curses(3X), ter‐
460 minfo(5). user_caps(5).
461 https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html
463 This describes ncurses version 6.4 (patch 20230520).
465
467 Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com> and
468 Thomas E. Dickey <dickey@invisible-island.net>
469 infocmp(1M)