term(4) term(4)
NAME
term - format of compiled term file
SYNOPSIS
/usr/share/lib/terminfo
DESCRIPTION
Compiled terminfo(4) descriptions are placed under the
directory /usr/share/lib/terminfo. In order to avoid a linear
search of a huge UNIX system directory, a two-level scheme is
used: /usr/share/lib/terminfo/c/name where name is the name of
the terminal, and c is the first character of name. Thus,
att4425 can be found in the file
/usr/share/lib/terminfo/a/att4425. Synonyms for the same
terminal are implemented by multiple links to the same
compiled file.
The format has been chosen so that it is the same on all
hardware. An 8-bit byte is assumed, but no assumptions about
byte ordering or sign extension are made. Thus, these binary
terminfo files can be transported to other hardware with 8-bit
bytes.
Short integers are stored in two 8-bit bytes. The first byte
contains the least significant 8 bits of the value, and the
second byte contains the most significant 8 bits. (Thus, the
value represented is 256*second+first.) The value -1 is
represented by 0377,0377, and the value -2 is represented by
0376,0377; other negative values are invalid. The -1
generally means that a capability is missing from this
terminal. The -2 means that the capability has been canceled
in the terminfo source and also is to be considered missing.
The compiled file is created from the source file descriptions
of the terminals (see the -I option of infocmp) by using the
terminfo compiler, tic, and read by the routine setupterm [see
curses(3curses).] The file is divided into six parts in the
following order: the header, terminal names, boolean flags,
numbers, strings, and string table.
The header section begins the file. This section contains six
short integers in the format described below. These integers
are (1) the magic number (octal 0432);
(2) the size, in bytes, of the names section; (3) the number
of bytes in the boolean section; (4) the number of short
integers in the numbers section; (5) the number of offsets
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term(4) term(4)
(short integers) in the strings section; (6) the size, in
bytes, of the string table.
The terminal names section comes next. It contains the first
line of the terminfo description, listing the various names
for the terminal, separated by the bar ( | ) character (see
term(5)). The section is terminated with an ASCII NUL
character.
The boolean flags have one byte for each flag. This byte is
either 0 or 1 as the flag is present or absent. The value of
2 means that the flag has been canceled. The capabilities are
in the same order as the file term.h.
Between the boolean section and the number section, a null
byte is inserted, if necessary, to ensure that the number
section begins on an even byte offset. All short integers are
aligned on a short word boundary.
The numbers section is similar to the boolean flags section.
Each capability takes up two bytes, and is stored as a short
integer. If the value represented is -1 or -2, the capability
is taken to be missing.
The strings section is also similar. Each capability is
stored as a short integer, in the format above. A value of -1
or -2 means the capability is missing. Otherwise, the value
is taken as an offset from the beginning of the string table.
Special characters in ^X or \c notation are stored in their
interpreted form, not the printing representation. Padding
information ($<nn>) and parameter information (%x) are stored
intact in uninterpreted form.
The final section is the string table. It contains all the
values of string capabilities referenced in the string
section. Each string is null terminated.
Note that it is possible for setupterm to expect a different
set of capabilities than are actually present in the file.
Either the database may have been updated since setupterm has
been recompiled (resulting in extra unrecognized entries in
the file) or the program may have been recompiled more
recently than the database was updated (resulting in missing
entries). The routine setupterm must be prepared for both
possibilities-this is why the numbers and sizes are included.
Also, new capabilities must always be added at the end of the
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lists of boolean, number, and string capabilities.
Some limitations: total compiled entries cannot exceed 4096
bytes; all entries in the name field cannot exceed 128 bytes.
FILES
/usr/share/lib/terminfo
compiled terminal description database
/usr/include/term.h
terminfo header file
REFERENCES
curses(3curses), infocmp(1M), term(5), terminfo(4)
Copyright 1994 Novell, Inc. Page 3