# infocmp 1m

    infocmp(1m)                                                        infocmp(1m)

## 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 ter-
           minfo 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 capabil-
           ity:

           o   F for missing boolean variables

           o   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  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  ter-
           minal 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.  Manda-
           tory 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  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   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  ter-
           minal  termname  which is relative to the sum of the descriptions given
           by the entries for the other terminals termnames.  It does this by ana-
           lyzing  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 ter-
           minfo compiler tic does a left-to-right scan of the capabilities, spec-
           ifying 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  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 curses(3x) for details).

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

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

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

           Using these options, it is possible to compare descriptions for a  ter-
           minal  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 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
                arrays  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
                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  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

                o   "+" (turn on) or

                o   "-" (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:

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

                o   However, show differences between absent and  cancelled  capa-
                    bilities.

                o   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.

                o   Available  terminfo  subsets  are  "SVr1", "Ultrix", "HP", and
                    "AIX"; see terminfo(5) for details.

                o   You can also choose the subset "BSD" which selects only  capa-
                    bilities  with  termcap equivalents recognized by 4.4BSD.  The
                    -C option sets the "BSD" subset as a side-effect.

                o   If you select any other value for -R, it is  the  same  as  no
                    subset,  i.e., all capabilities are used.  The -I option like-
                    wise 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 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,
                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  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,
                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

           /usr/share/terminfo Compiled terminal description database.

## 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:

           o   the -e option, to support fallback (compiled-in) terminal  descrip-
               tions

           o   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.

## 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 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.

## BUGS

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

## SEE ALSO

           captoinfo(1m),   infotocap(1m),   tic(1m),  toe(1m),  curses(3x),  ter-
           minfo(5).  user_caps(5).

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

           This describes ncurses version 6.2 (patch 20201107).

## AUTHOR

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

                                                                       infocmp(1m)