Provided by: ncurses-bin_6.3+20220423-2_amd64 bug

NAME

       infocmp - compare or print out terminfo descriptions

SYNOPSIS

       infocmp [-1CDEFGIKLTUVWcdegilnpqrtux]
             [-v n] [-s d| i| l| c] [-Q n] [-R subset]
             [-w width] [-A directory] [-B directory]
             [termname...]

DESCRIPTION

       infocmp  can  be  used  to  compare  a  binary terminfo entry with other terminfo entries,
       rewrite a terminfo description to take advantage of the use= terminfo field, or print  out
       a terminfo description from the binary file (term) in a variety of formats.  In all cases,
       the boolean fields will be printed first, followed by the numeric fields, followed by  the
       string fields.

   Default Options
       If no options are specified and zero or one termnames are specified, the -I option will be
       assumed.  If more than one termname is specified, the -d option will be assumed.

   Comparison Options [-d] [-c] [-n]
       infocmp compares the terminfo description of the first terminal termname with each of  the
       descriptions  given by the entries for the other terminal's termnames.  If a capability is
       defined for only one of the terminals, the value returned  depends  on  the  type  of  the
       capability:

       •   F for missing boolean variables

       •   NULL for missing integer or string variables

       Use the -q option to show the distinction between absent and cancelled capabilities.

       These  options  produce  a  list  which  you  can  use  to  compare  two  or more terminal
       descriptions:

       -d   produces a list of each capability that is different between two entries.  Each  item
            in  the  list shows “:” after the capability name, followed by the capability values,
            separated by a comma.

       -c   produces a list of each capability that  is  common  between  two  or  more  entries.
            Missing  capabilities  are  ignored.   Each  item  in  the  list  shows “=” after the
            capability name, followed by the capability value.

            The -u option provides a related  output,  showing  the  first  terminal  description
            rewritten to use the second as a building block via the “use=” clause.

       -n   produces  a  list of each capability that is in none of the given entries.  Each item
            in the list shows “!” before the capability name.

            Normally only the conventional capabilities are shown.  Use the -x option to add  the
            BSD-compatibility capabilities (names prefixed with “OT”).

            If no termnames are given, infocmp uses the environment variable TERM for each of the
            termnames.

   Source Listing Options [-I] [-L] [-C] [-r]
       The -I, -L, and -C options will produce a source listing for each terminal named.

                      -I   use the terminfo names
                      -L   use the long C variable name listed in <term.h>
                      -C   use the termcap names

                      -r   when using -C, put out all capabilities in termcap form
                      -K   modifies the -C option, improving BSD-compatibility.

       If no termnames are given, the environment variable TERM will be  used  for  the  terminal
       name.

       The  source produced by the -C option may be used directly as a termcap entry, but not all
       parameterized strings can be changed to the  termcap  format.   infocmp  will  attempt  to
       convert  most of the parameterized information, and anything not converted will be plainly
       marked in the output and commented out.  These should be edited by hand.

       For best results when converting to termcap  format,  you  should  use  both  -C  and  -r.
       Normally  a  termcap  description  is  limited  to  1023  bytes.   infocmp trims away less
       essential parts to make it fit.  If you are  converting  to  one  of  the  (rare)  termcap
       implementations  which  accept  an  unlimited  size of termcap, you may want to add the -T
       option.  More often however, you must help the termcap  implementation,  and  trim  excess
       whitespace (use the -0 option for that).

       All padding information for strings will be collected together and placed at the beginning
       of the string where termcap expects it.  Mandatory padding  (padding  information  with  a
       trailing “/”) will become optional.

       All  termcap variables no longer supported by terminfo, but which are derivable from other
       terminfo variables, will be output.  Not all terminfo  capabilities  will  be  translated;
       only  those  variables which were part of termcap will normally be output.  Specifying the
       -r option will take off this restriction,  allowing  all  capabilities  to  be  output  in
       termcap  form.  Normally you would use both the -C and -r options.  The actual format used
       incorporates some improvements  for  escaped  characters  from  terminfo  format.   For  a
       stricter BSD-compatible translation, use the -K option rather than -C.

       Note  that  because  padding  is  collected  to  the  beginning of the capability, not all
       capabilities are output.  Mandatory padding is not supported.  Because termcap strings are
       not as flexible, it is not always possible to convert a terminfo string capability into an
       equivalent termcap format.  A subsequent conversion of the termcap file back into terminfo
       format will not necessarily reproduce the original terminfo source.

       Some  common  terminfo  parameter  sequences, their termcap equivalents, and some terminal
       types which commonly have such sequences, are:

                     terminfo                    termcap   Representative Terminals
                     ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
                     %p1%c                       %.        adm
                     %p1%d                       %d        hp, ANSI standard, vt100
                     %p1%'x'%+%c                 %+x       concept
                     %i                          %iq       ANSI standard, vt100
                     %p1%?%'x'%>%t%p1%'y'%+%;    %>xy      concept
                     %p2 is printed before %p1   %r        hp

   Use= Option [-u]
       The -u option produces a terminfo source description of the first terminal termname  which
       is  relative  to  the sum of the descriptions given by the entries for the other terminals
       termnames.  It does this by analyzing the differences between the first termname  and  the
       other  termnames and producing a description with use= fields for the other terminals.  In
       this manner, it is possible  to  retrofit  generic  terminfo  entries  into  a  terminal's
       description.   Or, if two similar terminals exist, but were coded at different times or by
       different people so that each description is a full description, using infocmp  will  show
       what can be done to change one description to be relative to the other.

       A  capability  will  be  printed  with  an at-sign (@) if it no longer exists in the first
       termname, but one of the other termname entries contains a value for it.   A  capability's
       value  will be printed if the value in the first termname is not found in any of the other
       termname entries, or if the first of the other termname entries that has  this  capability
       gives a different value for the capability than that in the first termname.

       The  order  of the other termname entries is significant.  Since the terminfo compiler tic
       does a left-to-right scan of the capabilities, specifying two use=  entries  that  contain
       differing  entries  for  the same capabilities will produce different results depending on
       the order that the entries are given in.   infocmp  will  flag  any  such  inconsistencies
       between the other termname entries as they are found.

       Alternatively,  specifying  a  capability after a use= entry that contains that capability
       will cause  the  second  specification  to  be  ignored.   Using  infocmp  to  recreate  a
       description  can be a useful check to make sure that everything was specified correctly in
       the original source description.

       Another error that does not cause  incorrect  compiled  files,  but  will  slow  down  the
       compilation time, is specifying extra use= fields that are superfluous.  infocmp will flag
       any other termname use= fields that were not needed.

   Changing Databases [-A directory] [-B directory]
       Like other ncurses utilities, infocmp looks  for  the  terminal  descriptions  in  several
       places.   You can use the TERMINFO and TERMINFO_DIRS environment variables to override the
       compiled-in default list of places to search (see ncurses(3NCURSES) for details).

       You can also use the options -A and -B to override the  list  of  places  to  search  when
       comparing terminal descriptions:

       •   The -A option sets the location for the first termname

       •   The -B option sets the location for the other termnames.

       Using  these  options, it is possible to compare descriptions for a terminal with the same
       name located in two different databases.  For instance,  you  can  use  this  feature  for
       comparing descriptions for the same terminal created by different people.

   Other Options
       -0   causes the fields to be printed on one line, without wrapping.

       -1   causes  the  fields  to  be printed out one to a line.  Otherwise, the fields will be
            printed several to a line to a maximum width of 60 characters.

       -a   tells infocmp to retain  commented-out  capabilities  rather  than  discarding  them.
            Capabilities are commented by prefixing them with a period.

       -D   tells infocmp to print the database locations that it knows about, and exit.

       -E   Dump  the  capabilities  of the given terminal as tables, needed in the C initializer
            for a TERMTYPE structure (the terminal capability structure in the  <term.h>).   This
            option  is  useful for preparing versions of the curses library hardwired for a given
            terminal type.  The tables are all declared static, and are named  according  to  the
            type and the name of the corresponding terminal entry.

            Before  ncurses  5.0,  the  split  between  the -e and -E options was not needed; but
            support for extended names  required  making  the  arrays  of  terminal  capabilities
            separate from the TERMTYPE structure.

       -e   Dump  the  capabilities  of  the  given  terminal  as  a C initializer for a TERMTYPE
            structure (the terminal capability structure in the <term.h>).  This option is useful
            for preparing versions of the curses library hardwired for a given terminal type.

       -F   compare  terminfo  files.   This  assumes that two following arguments are filenames.
            The files are searched  for  pairwise  matches  between  entries,  with  two  entries
            considered  to match if any of their names do.  The report printed to standard output
            lists entries with no matches in the other file,  and  entries  with  more  than  one
            match.   For  entries  with  exactly  one  match  it  includes  a  difference report.
            Normally, to reduce the volume of the report, use references are not resolved  before
            looking for differences, but resolution can be forced by also specifying -r.

       -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   Analyze the initialization (is1, is2, is3), and reset (rs1, rs2, rs3), strings in the
            entry, as well as those used for starting/stopping  cursor-positioning  mode  (smcup,
            rmcup) as well as starting/stopping keymap mode (smkx, rmkx).

            For  each  string,  the  code  tries to analyze it into actions in terms of the other
            capabilities in the entry, certain X3.64/ISO 6429/ECMA-48 capabilities,  and  certain
            DEC  VT-series  private  modes  (the  set  of  recognized  special sequences has been
            selected for completeness over the existing terminfo  database).   Each  report  line
            consists  of  the  capability  name,  followed  by  a  colon and space, followed by a
            printable expansion of  the  capability  string  with  sections  matching  recognized
            actions translated into {}-bracketed descriptions.

            Here is a list of the DEC/ANSI special sequences recognized:

                                  Action        Meaning
                                  ─────────────────────────────────────────
                                  RIS           full reset
                                  SC            save cursor
                                  RC            restore cursor
                                  LL            home-down
                                  RSR           reset scroll region
                                  ─────────────────────────────────────────
                                  DECSTR        soft reset (VT320)
                                  S7C1T         7-bit controls (VT220)
                                  ─────────────────────────────────────────
                                  ISO DEC G0    enable DEC graphics for G0
                                  ISO UK G0     enable UK chars for G0
                                  ISO US G0     enable US chars for G0
                                  ISO DEC G1    enable DEC graphics for G1
                                  ISO UK G1     enable UK chars for G1
                                  ISO US G1     enable US chars for G1
                                  ─────────────────────────────────────────
                                  DECPAM        application keypad mode
                                  DECPNM        normal keypad mode
                                  DECANSI       enter ANSI mode
                                  ─────────────────────────────────────────
                                  ECMA[+-]AM    keyboard action mode
                                  ECMA[+-]IRM   insert replace mode
                                  ECMA[+-]SRM   send receive mode
                                  ECMA[+-]LNM   linefeed mode
                                  ─────────────────────────────────────────
                                  DEC[+-]CKM    application cursor keys
                                  DEC[+-]ANM    set VT52 mode
                                  DEC[+-]COLM   132-column mode
                                  DEC[+-]SCLM   smooth scroll
                                  DEC[+-]SCNM   reverse video mode
                                  DEC[+-]OM     origin mode
                                  DEC[+-]AWM    wraparound mode
                                  DEC[+-]ARM    auto-repeat mode

            It  also  recognizes  a  SGR  action corresponding to ANSI/ISO 6429/ECMA Set Graphics
            Rendition, with the values NORMAL, BOLD, UNDERLINE,  BLINK,  and  REVERSE.   All  but
            NORMAL may be prefixed with

            •   “+” (turn on) or

            •   “-” (turn off).

            An SGR0 designates an empty highlight sequence (equivalent to {SGR:NORMAL}).

       -l   Set output format to terminfo.

       -p   Ignore padding specifications when comparing strings.

       -Q n 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

            For example, this prints the compiled terminfo value  as  a  string  which  could  be
            assigned to the TERMINFO environment variable:

                infocmp -0 -q -Q2

       -q   This makes the output a little shorter:

            •   Make  the  comparison  listing shorter by omitting subheadings, and using “-” for
                absent capabilities, “@” for canceled rather than “NULL”.

            •   However, show differences between absent and cancelled capabilities.

            •   Omit the “Reconstructed from” comment for source listings.

       -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 variants such as AIX that  have  their  own  extensions
            incompatible with SVr4/XSI.

            •   Available terminfo subsets are “SVr1”, “Ultrix”, “HP”, and “AIX”; see terminfo(5)
                for details.

            •   You can also choose the subset “BSD” which selects only capabilities with termcap
                equivalents recognized by 4.4BSD.  The -C option sets the “BSD” subset as a side-
                effect.

            •   If you select any other value for -R, it is the same  as  no  subset,  i.e.,  all
                capabilities  are  used.   The  -I  option  likewise selects no subset as a side-
                effect.

       -s [d|i|l|c]
            The -s option sorts the fields within each type according to the argument below:

            d    leave fields in the order that they are stored in the terminfo database.

            i    sort by terminfo name.

            l    sort by the long C variable name.

            c    sort by the termcap name.

            If the -s option is not given, the fields printed out will be  sorted  alphabetically
            by  the  terminfo  name  within  each  type,  except  in the case of the -C or the -L
            options, which cause the sorting to be done  by  the  termcap  name  or  the  long  C
            variable name, respectively.

       -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 infocmp to not post-process the data  after  parsing  the  source  file.   This
            feature  helps  when  comparing  the  actual  contents  of two source files, since it
            excludes the inferences that infocmp makes to fill in missing data.

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

       -v n prints out tracing information on standard error as the program runs.

            The optional parameter n is a number from 1 to 10, inclusive, indicating the  desired
            level  of  detail  of  information.  If ncurses is built without tracing support, the
            optional parameter is ignored.

       -W   By itself, the -w option will not force long strings  to  be  wrapped.   Use  the  -W
            option to do this.

       -w width
            changes the output to width characters.

       -x   print  information  for  user-defined  capabilities  (see  user_caps(5).   These  are
            extensions to the terminfo repertoire which can be loaded using the -x option of tic.

FILES

       /etc/terminfo       Compiled terminal description database.

HISTORY

       Although System V Release 2 provided a terminfo library, it had  no  documented  tool  for
       decompiling  the  terminal  descriptions.   Tony  Hansen (AT&T) wrote the first infocmp in
       early 1984, for System V Release 3.

       Eric Raymond used the AT&T documentation in 1995 to  provide  an  equivalent  infocmp  for
       ncurses.  In addition, he added a few new features such as:

       •   the -e option, to support fallback (compiled-in) terminal descriptions

       •   the -i option, to help with analysis

       Later, Thomas Dickey added the -x (user-defined capabilities) option, and the -E option to
       support fallback entries with user-defined capabilities.

       For a complete list, see the EXTENSIONS section.

       In 2010, Roy Marples provided an infocmp program for NetBSD.  It is less capable than  the
       SVr4  or  ncurses  versions (e.g., it lacks the sorting options documented in X/Open), but
       does include the -x option adapted from ncurses.

PORTABILITY

       X/Open Curses, Issue 7 (2009) provides a description of infocmp.  It does not mention  the
       options used for converting to termcap format.

EXTENSIONS

       The  -0, -1, -E, -F, -G, -Q, -R, -T, -V, -a, -e, -f, -g, -i, -l, -p, -q and -t options are
       not supported in SVr4 curses.

       SVr4 infocmp does not distinguish between absent and  cancelled  capabilities.   Also,  it
       shows  missing  integer  capabilities  as -1 (the internal value used to represent missing
       integers).  This implementation shows  those  as  “NULL”,  for  consistency  with  missing
       strings.

       The  -r  option's  notion  of  “termcap” capabilities is System V Release 4's.  Actual BSD
       curses versions will have a more restricted set.  To see  only  the  4.4BSD  set,  use  -r
       -RBSD.

BUGS

       The -F option of infocmp(1) should be a toe(1) mode.

SEE ALSO

       captoinfo(1), infotocap(1), tic(1), toe(1), ncurses(3NCURSES), terminfo(5).  user_caps(5).

       https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html

       This describes ncurses version 6.3 (patch 20220423).

AUTHOR

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

                                                                                       infocmp(1)