NAME

       charmap - character set description file

DESCRIPTION

       A character set description (charmap) defines all available characters and their encodings
       in a character set.  localedef(1) can use charmaps to create locale variants for different
       character sets.

   Syntax
       The charmap file starts with a header that may consist of the following keywords:

       <code_set_name>
              is followed by the name of the character map.

       <comment_char>
              is  followed by a character that will be used as the comment character for the rest
              of the file.  It defaults to the number sign (#).

       <escape_char>
              is followed by a character that should be used as the escape character for the rest
              of  the  file  to  mark characters that should be interpreted in a special way.  It
              defaults to the backslash (\).

       <mb_cur_max>
              is followed by the maximum number of bytes for a character.  The default  value  is
              1.

       <mb_cur_min>
              is  followed  by  the  minimum number of bytes for a character.  This value must be
              less  than  or  equal  than  <mb_cur_max>.   If  not  specified,  it  defaults   to
              <mb_cur_max>.

       The character set definition section starts with the keyword CHARMAP in the first column.

       The following lines may have one of the two following forms to define the character set:

       <character> byte-sequence comment
              This  form  defines  exactly  one  character  and  its byte sequence, comment being
              optional.

       <character>..<character> byte-sequence comment
              This form defines a character range and its byte sequence, comment being optional.

       The character set definition section ends with the string END CHARMAP.

       The character set definition section may optionally be followed by  a  section  to  define
       widths of characters.

       The  WIDTH_DEFAULT  keyword can be used to define the default width for all characters not
       explicitly listed.  The default character width is 1.

       The width section for individual characters starts with the keyword  WIDTH  in  the  first
       column.

       The  following  lines  may have one of the two following forms to define the widths of the
       characters:

       <character> width
              This form defines the width of exactly one character.

       <character>...<character> width
              This form defines the width for all the characters in the range.

       The width definition section ends with the string END WIDTH.

FILES

       /usr/share/i18n/charmaps
              Usual default character map path.

STANDARDS

       POSIX.2.

EXAMPLES

       The Euro sign is defined as follows in the UTF-8 charmap:

       <U20AC>     /xe2/x82/xac EURO SIGN

SEE ALSO

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