Provided by: ncurses-bin_6.0+20160213-1ubuntu1_amd64 bug

NAME

       tic - the terminfo entry-description compiler

SYNOPSIS

       tic [-01CDGIKLNTUVacfgqrstx] [-e names] [-o dir] [-Q[n]] [-R subset] [-v[n]] [-w[n]] file

DESCRIPTION

       The  tic  command translates a terminfo file from source format into compiled format.  The
       compiled format is necessary for use with the library routines in ncurses(3NCURSES).

       As described in term(5), the database may  be  either  a  directory  tree  (one  file  per
       terminal  entry) or a hashed database (one record per entry).  The tic command writes only
       one type of entry, depending on how it was built:

       •   For directory trees, the top-level directory, e.g., /usr/share/terminfo, specifies the
           location of the database.

       •   For  hashed  databases,  a filename is needed.  If the given file is not found by that
           name, but can be found by adding the suffix ".db", then that is used.

           The default name for the hashed database is the same as  the  default  directory  name
           (only adding a ".db" suffix).

       In  either  case  (directory or hashed database), tic will create the container if it does
       not exist.  For a directory, this would be the "terminfo"  leaf,  versus  a  "terminfo.db"
       file.

       The  results  are  normally  placed  in  the  system terminfo database /etc/terminfo.  The
       compiled terminal description can be placed in a different terminfo database.   There  are
       two ways to achieve this:

       •   First,  you  may  override  the  system  default  either by using the -o option, or by
           setting the variable TERMINFO in your shell environment to a valid database location.

       •   Secondly, if tic cannot write in /etc/terminfo or the location  specified  using  your
           TERMINFO  variable,  it  looks  for  the directory $HOME/.terminfo (or hashed database
           $HOME/.terminfo.db); if that location exists, the entry is placed there.

       Libraries that read terminfo entries are expected to check in succession

       •   a location specified with the TERMINFO environment variable,

       •   $HOME/.terminfo,

       •   directories listed in the TERMINFO_DIRS environment variable,

       •   a compiled-in list of directories (no default value), and

       •   the system terminfo database (/etc/terminfo).

   OPTIONS
       -0     restricts the output to a single line

       -1     restricts the output to a single column

       -a     tells tic  to  retain  commented-out  capabilities  rather  than  discarding  them.
              Capabilities  are  commented  by  prefixing  them  with a period.  This sets the -x
              option, because it treats the commented-out entries as user-defined names.  If  the
              source  is  termcap, accept the 2-character names required by version 6.  Otherwise
              these are ignored.

       -C     Force source translation to termcap format.  Note: this differs from the -C  option
              of  infocmp(1)  in  that  it  does  not merely translate capability names, but also
              translates  terminfo  strings  to  termcap  format.   Capabilities  that  are   not
              translatable  are  left  in  the entry under their terminfo names but commented out
              with two preceding dots.  The actual format used incorporates some improvements for
              escaped   characters   from   terminfo   format.   For  a  stricter  BSD-compatible
              translation, add the -K option.

              If this is combined with -c, tic makes additional checks to report cases where  the
              terminfo values do not have an exact equivalent in termcap form.  For example:

              •   sgr  usually  will  not convert, because termcap lacks the ability to work with
                  more  than  two  parameters,  and   because   termcap   lacks   many   of   the
                  arithmetic/logical operators used in terminfo.

              •   capabilities  with  more  than  one  delay or with delays before the end of the
                  string will not convert completely.

       -c     tells tic to only check file for errors, including  syntax  problems  and  bad  use
              links.  If you specify -C (-I) with this option, the code will print warnings about
              entries which, after use resolution, are more than 1023 (4096) bytes long.  Due  to
              a fixed buffer length in older termcap libraries, as well as buggy checking for the
              buffer length (and a documented limit in terminfo), these entries  may  cause  core
              dumps with other implementations.

              tic  checks  string capabilities to ensure that those with parameters will be valid
              expressions.  It does this check only for the predefined string capabilities; those
              which are defined with the -x option are ignored.

       -D     tells tic to print the database locations that it knows about, and exit.  The first
              location shown is the one to which it would write compiled  terminal  descriptions.
              If  tic  is  not  able  to find a writable database location according to the rules
              summarized above, it will print a diagnostic and exit with  an  error  rather  than
              printing a list of database locations.

       -e names
              Limit  writes  and translations to the following comma-separated list of terminals.
              If any name or alias of a terminal matches one of the names in the list, the  entry
              will be written or translated as normal.  Otherwise no output will be generated for
              it.  The option value is interpreted as a file containing the list if it contains a
              '/'.  (Note: depending on how tic was compiled, this option may require -I or -C.)

       -f     Display  complex  terminfo  strings  which  contain  if/then/else/endif expressions
              indented for readability.

       -G     Display constant literals in decimal form rather than their character equivalents.

       -g     Display constant character literals  in  quoted  form  rather  than  their  decimal
              equivalents.

       -I     Force source translation to terminfo format.

       -K     Suppress  some  longstanding  ncurses  extensions to termcap format, e.g., "\s" for
              space.

       -L     Force source translation to terminfo format using the long C variable names  listed
              in <term.h>

       -N     Disable  smart  defaults.  Normally, when translating from termcap to terminfo, the
              compiler makes a number of assumptions about the defaults  of  string  capabilities
              reset1_string,  carriage_return,  cursor_left,  cursor_down,  scroll_forward,  tab,
              newline, key_backspace, key_left, and  key_down,  then  attempts  to  use  obsolete
              termcap  capabilities to deduce correct values.  It also normally suppresses output
              of obsolete termcap capabilities such as bs.  This option  forces  a  more  literal
              translation that also preserves the obsolete capabilities.

       -odir  Write  compiled  entries  to  given  database  location.   Overrides  the  TERMINFO
              environment variable.

       -Qn    Rather than show source in terminfo (text)  format,  print  the  compiled  (binary)
              format in hexadecimal or base64 form, depending on the option's value:

               1  hexadecimal

               2  base64

               3  hexadecimal and base64

       -q     Suppress comments and blank lines when showing translated source.

       -Rsubset
              Restrict output to a given subset.  This option is for use with archaic versions of
              terminfo like those on SVr1, Ultrix, or HP/UX that do not support the full  set  of
              SVR4/XSI  Curses  terminfo;  and outright broken ports like AIX 3.x that have their
              own extensions incompatible with SVr4/XSI.  Available subsets are "SVr1", "Ultrix",
              "HP", "BSD" and "AIX"; see terminfo(5) for details.

       -r     Force  entry resolution (so there are no remaining tc capabilities) even when doing
              translation to termcap format.  This may be needed if you are preparing  a  termcap
              file  for a termcap library (such as GNU termcap through version 1.3 or BSD termcap
              through 4.3BSD) that does not handle multiple tc capabilities per entry.

       -s     Summarize the compile by showing the  database  location  into  which  entries  are
              written, and the number of entries which are compiled.

       -T     eliminates  size-restrictions  on  the  generated  text.  This is mainly useful for
              testing and analysis, since the compiled descriptions are limited (e.g.,  1023  for
              termcap, 4096 for terminfo).

       -t     tells  tic  to  discard commented-out capabilities.  Normally when translating from
              terminfo to termcap, untranslatable capabilities are commented-out.

       -U   tells tic to not post-process the data after parsing the source file.   Normally,  it
            infers data which is commonly missing in older terminfo data, or in termcaps.

       -V   reports the version of ncurses which was used in this program, and exits.

       -vn  specifies  that  (verbose)  output  be  written  to  standard error trace information
            showing tic's progress.  The  optional  parameter  n  is  a  number  from  1  to  10,
            inclusive,  indicating  the desired level of detail of information.  If n is omitted,
            the default level is 1.  If n is specified and greater than 1, the level of detail is
            increased.

            The debug flag levels are as follows:

            1      Names of files created and linked

            2      Information related to the “use” facility

            3      Statistics from the hashing algorithm

            5      String-table memory allocations

            7      Entries into the string-table

            8      List of tokens encountered by scanner

            9      All values computed in construction of the hash table

            If the debug level n is not given, it is taken to be one.

       -wn  specifies  the width of the output.  The parameter is optional.  If it is omitted, it
            defaults to 60.

       -x   Treat unknown capabilities as user-defined.  That is, if you supply a capability name
            which tic does not recognize, it will infer its type (boolean, number or string) from
            the syntax and make an  extended  table  entry  for  that.   User-defined  capability
            strings whose name begins with “k” are treated as function keys.

   PARAMETERS
       file   contains  one  or  more  terminfo  terminal  descriptions  in  source  format  [see
              terminfo(5)].  Each description  in  the  file  describes  the  capabilities  of  a
              particular terminal.

              If  file is “-”, then the data is read from the standard input.  The file parameter
              may also be the path of a character-device.

   PROCESSING
       All but one of the capabilities recognized by tic  are  documented  in  terminfo(5).   The
       exception is the use capability.

       When  a  use=entry-name  field is discovered in a terminal entry currently being compiled,
       tic reads in the binary from /etc/terminfo to complete the entry.  (Entries  created  from
       file  will  be  used first.  tic duplicates the capabilities in entry-name for the current
       entry, with the exception of those capabilities that explicitly are defined in the current
       entry.

       When  an  entry,  e.g.,  entry_name_1,  contains  a  use=entry_name_2  field, any canceled
       capabilities in entry_name_2 must also  appear  in  entry_name_1  before  use=  for  these
       capabilities to be canceled in entry_name_1.

       Total  compiled entries cannot exceed 4096 bytes.  The name field cannot exceed 512 bytes.
       Terminal names exceeding the maximum alias length (32  characters  on  systems  with  long
       filenames,  14  characters  otherwise) will be truncated to the maximum alias length and a
       warning message will be printed.

COMPATIBILITY

       There is some evidence that historic tic implementations treated description  fields  with
       no  whitespace  in  them as additional aliases or short names.  This tic does not do that,
       but it does warn when description fields may be  treated  that  way  and  check  them  for
       dangerous characters.

EXTENSIONS

       Unlike the SVr4 tic command, this implementation can actually compile termcap sources.  In
       fact, entries in terminfo and termcap syntax can be mixed in a single  source  file.   See
       terminfo(5) for the list of termcap names taken to be equivalent to terminfo names.

       The  SVr4  manual  pages are not clear on the resolution rules for use capabilities.  This
       implementation of tic will find use targets anywhere in the source file,  or  anywhere  in
       the   file   tree  rooted  at  TERMINFO  (if  TERMINFO  is  defined),  or  in  the  user's
       $HOME/.terminfo database (if it exists), or (finally) anywhere in the system's  file  tree
       of compiled entries.

       The  error messages from this tic have the same format as GNU C error messages, and can be
       parsed by GNU Emacs's compile facility.

       The -0, -1, -C, -G, -I, -N, -R, -T, -V, -a, -e, -f, -g, -o, -r, -s, -t and -x options  are
       not supported under SVr4.  The SVr4 -c mode does not report bad use links.

       System  V  does  not compile entries to or read entries from your $HOME/.terminfo database
       unless TERMINFO is explicitly set to it.

FILES

       /etc/terminfo/?/*
            Compiled terminal description database.

SEE ALSO

       infocmp(1), captoinfo(1), infotocap(1), toe(1), ncurses(3NCURSES), term(5).  terminfo(5).

       This describes ncurses version 6.0 (patch 20160213).

AUTHOR

       Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com> and
       Thomas E. Dickey <dickey@invisible-island.net>

                                                                                           tic(1)