# tic 1m

    tic(1m)                                                                tic(1m)

## NAME

           tic - the terminfo entry-description compiler

## SYNOPSIS

           tic  [-01CDGIKLNTUVWacfgqrstx]  [-e names] [-o dir] [-Q[n]] [-R subset]
           [-v[n]] [-w[n]] file

## DESCRIPTION

           The tic command translates a terminfo file from source format into com-
           piled  format.   The  compiled  format  is  necessary  for use with the
           library routines in ncurses(3x).

           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:

           o   For directory trees, the top-level directory, e.g., /usr/share/ter-
               minfo, specifies the location of the database.

           o   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 con-
           tainer if it does not exist.  For a directory, this would be the  "ter-
           minfo" leaf, versus a "terminfo.db" file.

           The  results  are  normally  placed  in  the  system  terminfo database
           /usr/share/terminfo.  The compiled terminal description can  be  placed
           in a different terminfo database.  There are two ways to achieve this:

           o   First,  you  may override the system default either by using the -o
               option, or by setting the variable TERMINFO in your shell  environ-
               ment to a valid database location.

           o   Secondly,  if  tic cannot write in /usr/share/terminfo or the loca-
               tion 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  succes-
           sion

           o   a location specified with the TERMINFO environment variable,

           o   $HOME/.terminfo,

           o   directories listed in the TERMINFO_DIRS environment variable,

           o   a  compiled-in  list  of directories (/usr/local/ncurses/share/ter-
               minfo:/usr/share/terminfo), and

           o   the system terminfo database (/usr/share/terminfo).

### ALIASES

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

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

           o   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 dis-
                  carding them.  Capabilities are commented by prefixing them with
                  a  period.   This sets the -x option, because it treats the com-
                  mented-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(1m) 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:

                  o   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.

                  o   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 prob-
                  lems 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  ter-
                  minfo),  these entries may cause core dumps with other implemen-
                  tations.

                  tic checks string capabilities to ensure that those with parame-
                  ters 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  summa-
                  rized  above,  it will print a diagnostic and exit with an error
                  rather than printing a list of database locations.

           -e names
                  Limit writes and translations to the  following  comma-separated
                  list  of  terminals.  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 com-
                  piled, 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,  car-
                  riage_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, depend-
                  ing 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 ter-
                  minfo; 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 capabili-
                  ties) 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  ter-
                  minfo).

           -t     tells  tic to discard commented-out capabilities.  Normally when
                  translating from terminfo to termcap,  untranslatable  capabili-
                  ties 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 10, 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 speci-
                fied and greater than 1, the level of detail is increased.

                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

                5      String-table memory allocations

                7      Entries into the string-table

                8      List of tokens encountered by scanner

                9      All values computed in construction of the hash table

                If the debug level n is not given, it is taken to be one.

           -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 recog-
                nize, 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 func-
                tion 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  /usr/share/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.  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.

## 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 warn-
           ing 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:

           o   pcurses had 8 warnings

           o   ncurses in 1996 had 16 warnings

           o   Solaris (SVr4) curses has 28 warnings

           o   NetBSD tic in 2019 has 19 warnings.

           o   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.

## 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 True64 UNIX.
           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 ter-
           minal 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 obsoles-
           cent  behavior from SVr2, and is not (for example) a documented feature
           of SVr3.

### COMPATIBILITY

           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 descrip-
           tion  fields may be treated that way and check them for dangerous char-
           acters.

### 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  any-
           where  in  the source file, or anywhere in the file tree rooted at TER-
           MINFO (if TERMINFO is defined), or in the user's $HOME/.terminfo  data-
           base (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:

           o   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

           o   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.

## FILES

           /usr/share/terminfo/?/*
                Compiled terminal description database.

## SEE ALSO

           infocmp(1m),   captoinfo(1m),   infotocap(1m),   toe(1m),   curses(3x),
           term(5).  terminfo(5).  user_caps(5).

           This describes ncurses version 6.2 (patch 20201107).

## AUTHOR

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

                                                                           tic(1m)