Provided by: ncurses-bin_6.5-2_amd64 bug

NAME

       tic - compile terminal descriptions for terminfo or termcap

SYNOPSIS

       tic [-01acCDfgGIKLNqrstTUVWx] [-e terminal-type-list] [-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 (/etc/terminfo:/lib/terminfo:/usr/share/terminfo),
           and

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

       The Fetching Compiled Descriptions section in the terminfo(5)  manual  goes  into  further
       detail.

   Aliases
       This  is  the  same  program  as  infotocap and captoinfo; usually those are linked to, or
       copied from this program:

       •   When invoked as infotocap, tic sets the -I option.

       •   When invoked as captoinfo, tic sets the -C option.

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 list
              Limit  writes  and  translations to the comma-separated list of terminal types.  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 9, inclusive, indicating the desired
              level of detail of information.

              •   If ncurses is built without tracing support, the optional parameter is ignored.

              •   If n is omitted, the default level is 1.

              •   If n is specified and greater than 1, the level of detail is increased, and the
                  output is written (with tracing information) to the “trace” file.

              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

              4   Details of extended capabilities

              5   (unused)

              6   (unused)

              7   Entries into the string-table

              8   List of tokens encountered by scanner

              9   All values computed in construction of the hash table

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

              If you specify both -f and -W options, the latter is ignored when  -f  has  already
              split the line.

       -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 (see user_caps(5)).   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 in the legacy  storage  format,  or  32768
       using the extended number format.  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.

FILES

       /etc/terminfo
              compiled terminal description database

NOTES

       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.

       Aside from -c and -v, options are not portable:

       •   Most of tic's options are not supported by SVr4 tic:

           -0 -1 -C -G -I -N -R -T -V -a -e -f -g -o -r -s -t -x

       •   The NetBSD tic supports a few of the ncurses options

           -a -o -x

           and adds -S (a feature which does the same thing as infocmp's -e and -E options).

       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.

PORTABILITY

       X/Open  Curses,  Issue 7 (2009) provides a brief description of tic.  It lists one option:
       -c.  The omission of -v is unexpected.  The change history states that the description  is
       derived  from  Tru64.   According  to  its manual pages, that system also supported the -v
       option.

       Shortly after Issue 7 was released, Tru64 was discontinued.  As  of  2019,  the  surviving
       implementations  of tic are SVr4 (AIX, HP-UX and Solaris), ncurses and NetBSD curses.  The
       SVr4 tic programs all support the -v option.  The  NetBSD  tic  program  follows  X/Open's
       documentation, omitting the -v option.

       The  X/Open  rationale  states that some implementations of tic read terminal descriptions
       from the standard input if the file parameter is omitted.  None of  these  implementations
       do that.  Further, it comments that some may choose to read from ”./terminfo.src” but that
       is obsolescent behavior from SVr2, and is not (for example) a documented feature of SVr3.

HISTORY

       System V Release 2 provided a tic utility.  It accepted a single  option:  -v  (optionally
       followed  by a number).  According to Ross Ridge's comment in mytinfo, this version of tic
       was unable to represent cancelled capabilities.

       System V Release 3 provided a different tic utility, written by Pavel Curtis,  (originally
       named  “compile”  in pcurses).  This added an option -c to check the file for errors, with
       the caveat that errors in “use=”  links  would  not  be  reported.   System  V  Release  3
       documented  a  few  warning  messages  which did not appear in pcurses.  While the program
       itself was changed little as development continued with System V Release 4, the  table  of
       capabilities grew from 180 (pcurses) to 464 (Solaris).

       In  early  development  of  ncurses  (1993), Zeyd Ben-Halim used the table from mytinfo to
       extend the pcurses table to 469 capabilities (456 matched SVr4, 8 were only  in  SVr4,  13
       were  not in SVr4).  Of those 13, 11 were ultimately discarded (perhaps to match the draft
       of  X/Open  Curses).   The  exceptions  were  memory_lock_above  and  memory_unlock   (see
       user_caps(5)).

       Eric  Raymond  incorporated  parts  of  mytinfo  into ncurses to implement the termcap-to-
       terminfo source conversion, and extended that to begin development  of  the  corresponding
       terminfo-to-termcap  source  conversion, Thomas Dickey completed that development over the
       course of several years.

       In 1999, Thomas Dickey added the -x option to support user-defined capabilities.

       In 2010, Roy Marples provided a  tic  program  and  terminfo  library  for  NetBSD.   That
       implementation adapts several features from ncurses, including tic's -x option.

       The  -c  option  tells  tic  to check for problems in the terminfo source file.  Continued
       development provides additional checks:

       •   pcurses had 8 warnings

       •   ncurses in 1996 had 16 warnings

       •   Solaris (SVr4) curses has 28 warnings

       •   NetBSD tic in 2019 has 19 warnings.

       •   ncurses in 2019 has 96 warnings

       The checking done in ncurses' tic helps  with  the  conversion  to  termcap,  as  well  as
       pointing  out  errors and inconsistencies.  It is also used to ensure consistency with the
       user-defined capabilities.  There are  527  distinct  capabilities  in  ncurses'  terminal
       database; 128 of those are user-defined.

AUTHORS

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

SEE ALSO

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