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.

CONFORMING TO

       POSIX.2.

EXAMPLE

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

       <U20AC>     /xe2/x82/xac

SEE ALSO

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

COLOPHON

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