infocmp(1) User commands infocmp(1)
NAME
infocmp - compare or print out terminfo descriptions
SYNOPSIS
infocmp [-1cCdDeEFgGiIKlLnpqrtTuUVWx]
[-v n] [-s d| i| l| c] [-Q n] [-R subset]
[-w width] [-A directory] [-B directory]
[terminal-type ...]
DESCRIPTION
infocmp can be used to compare a binary terminfo entry with other ter-
minfo entries, rewrite a terminfo description to take advantage of the
use= terminfo field, or print out a terminfo description from the bi-
nary 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 terminal-types are speci-
fied, the -I option will be assumed. If more than one terminal-type is
specified, the -d option will be assumed.
Comparison Options [-d] [-c] [-n]
infocmp compares the terminfo description of the first terminal termi-
nal-type with each of the descriptions given by the entries for the
other terminal's terminal-types. If a capability is defined for only
one of the terminals, the value returned depends on the type of the ca-
pability:
• 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 capabil-
ity value.
The -u option provides a related output, showing the first termi-
nal 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 terminal-types are given, infocmp uses the environment vari-
able TERM for each of the terminal-types.
Source Listing Options [-I] [-L] [-C] [-r]
The -I, -L, and -C options will produce a source listing for each ter-
minal named.
-I use terminfo capability codes
-L use “long” capability names
-C use termcap capability codes
-r with -C, include nonstandard capabilities
-K with -C, improve BSD compatibility
If no terminal-types 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 in-
formation, 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 of-
ten 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. Manda-
tory padding (padding information with a trailing “/”) will become op-
tional.
All termcap variables no longer supported by terminfo, but which are
derivable from other terminfo variables, will be output. Not all ter-
minfo 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 charac-
ters 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 capabil-
ity, not all capabilities are output. Mandatory padding is not sup-
ported. 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 Terminal Types
────────────────────────────────────────────────────
%p1%c %. ansi-m
%p1%d %d ansi, vt100
%p1%' '%+%c %+x vt52
%i %iq ansi, vt100
%p1%?%'x'%>%t%p1%'y'%+%; %>xy annarbor4080
%p2...%p1 %r hpgeneric
Use= Option [-u]
The -u option produces a terminfo source description of the first ter-
minal terminal-type which is relative to the sum of the descriptions
given by the entries for the other terminal-types. It does this by an-
alyzing the differences between the first terminal-types and the other
terminal-types 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 peo-
ple 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 terminal-type, but one of the other terminal-type entries
contains a value for it. A capability's value will be printed if the
value in the first terminal-type is not found in any of the other ter-
minal-type entries, or if the first of the other terminal-type entries
that has this capability gives a different value for the capability
than that in the first terminal-type.
The order of the other terminal-type 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 terminal-type 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. Us-
ing infocmp to recreate a description can be a useful check to make
sure that everything was specified correctly in the original source de-
scription.
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 terminal-type use= fields
that were not needed.
Changing Databases [-A directory] [-B directory]
Like other ncurses utilities, infocmp looks for the terminal descrip-
tions 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), as well as the Fetching Com-
piled Descriptions section in terminfo(5).
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 terminal-type
• The -B option sets the location for the other terminal-types.
Using these options, it is possible to compare descriptions for a ter-
minal with the same name located in two different databases. For in-
stance, 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 capabil-
ity structure in the <term.h>). This option is useful for prepar-
ing 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 ar-
rays of terminal capabilities separate from the TERMTYPE struc-
ture.
-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 be-
tween entries, with two entries considered to match if any of
their names do. The report printed to standard output lists en-
tries 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 char-
acter 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 start-
ing/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 com-
piled (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 capa-
bilities.
• 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 capa-
bilities with termcap equivalents recognized by 4.4BSD.
• If you select any other value for -R, it is the same as no
subset, i.e., all capabilities are used.
A few options override the subset selected with -R, if they are
processed later in the command parameters:
-C sets the “BSD” subset as a side-effect.
-I sets the subset to all capabilities.
-r sets the subset to all capabilities.
-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 ter-
minfo 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, ex-
cept 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 de-
scriptions are limited (e.g., 1023 for termcap, 4096 for ter-
minfo).
-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 con-
tents 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, in-
dicating the desired level of detail of information. If ncurses
is built without tracing support, the optional parameter is ig-
nored.
-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
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 capabil-
ities. 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.
PORTABILITY
X/Open Curses, Issue 7 (2009) provides a description of infocmp. It
does not mention the options used for converting to termcap format.
HISTORY
Although System V Release 2 provided a terminfo library, it had no doc-
umented 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 equiva-
lent infocmp for ncurses. In addition, he added a few new features
such as:
• the -e option, to support fallback (compiled-in) terminal descrip-
tions
• 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 capa-
bilities.
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.
BUGS
The -F option of infocmp(1) should be a toe(1) mode.
AUTHORS
Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com> and
Thomas E. Dickey <dickey@invisible-island.net>
SEE ALSO
captoinfo(1), infotocap(1), tic(1), toe(1), ncurses(3NCURSES),
terminfo(5), user_caps(5)
https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html
ncurses 6.4 2024-01-13 infocmp(1)
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