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term(5) File Formats Manual term(5) NAME term - format of compiled term file. SYNOPSIS term DESCRIPTION STORAGE LOCATION Compiled terminfo descriptions are placed under the directory /etc/ter- minfo. Two configurations are supported (when building the ncurses li- braries): directory tree A two-level scheme is used to avoid a linear search of a huge UNIX system directory: /etc/terminfo/c/name where name is the name of the terminal, and c is the first character of name. Thus, act4 can be found in the file /etc/terminfo/a/act4. Synonyms for the same terminal are implemented by multiple links to the same com- piled file. hashed database Using Berkeley database, two types of records are stored: the ter- minfo data in the same format as stored in a directory tree with the terminfo's primary name as a key, and records containing only aliases pointing to the primary name. If built to write hashed databases, ncurses can still read ter- minfo databases organized as a directory tree, but cannot write entries into the directory tree. It can write (or rewrite) en- tries in the hashed database. ncurses distinguishes the two cases in the TERMINFO and TER- MINFO_DIRS environment variable by assuming a directory tree for entries that correspond to an existing directory, and hashed data- base otherwise. LEGACY STORAGE FORMAT The format has been chosen so that it will be the same on all hardware. An 8 or more bit byte is assumed, but no assumptions about byte order- ing or sign extension are made. The compiled file is created with the tic program, and read by the rou- tine setupterm(3X). The file is divided into six parts: a) header, b) terminal names, c) boolean flags, d) numbers, e) strings, and f) 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 terminal names section; (3) the number of bytes in the boolean flags section; (4) the number of short integers in the numbers section; (5) the number of offsets (short integers) in the strings section; (6) the size, in bytes, of the string table. The capabilities in the boolean flags, numbers, and strings sections are in the same order as the file <term.h>. Short integers are signed, in the range -32768 to 32767. They are stored as two 8-bit bytes. The first byte contains the least signifi- cant 8 bits of the value, and the second byte contains the most signif- icant 8 bits. (Thus, the value represented is 256*second+first.) This format corresponds to the hardware of the VAX and PDP-11 (that is, lit- tle-endian machines). Machines where this does not correspond to the hardware must read the integers as two bytes and compute the little-en- dian value. Numbers in a terminal description, whether they are entries in the num- bers or strings table, are positive integers. Boolean flags are treated as positive one-byte integers. In each case, those positive integers represent a terminal capability. The terminal compiler tic uses negative integers to handle the cases where a capability is not available: o If a capability is absent from this terminal, tic stores a -1 in the corresponding table. The integer value -1 is represented by two bytes 0377, 0377. Absent boolean values are represented by the byte 0 (false). o If a capability has been canceled from this terminal, tic stores a -2 in the corresponding table. The integer value -2 is represented by two bytes 0377, 0376. The boolean value -2 is represented by the byte 0376. o Other negative values are illegal. The terminal names section comes after the header. It contains the first line of the terminfo description, listing the various names for the terminal, separated by the "|" character. The terminal names sec- tion is terminated with an ASCII NUL character. The boolean flags section has one byte for each flag. Boolean capabil- ities are either 1 or 0 (true or false) according to whether the termi- nal supports the given capability or not. Between the boolean flags section and the number section, a null byte will be inserted, if necessary, to ensure that the number section be- gins on an even byte This is a relic of the PDP-11's word-addressed ar- chitecture, originally designed to avoid traps induced by addressing a word on an odd byte boundary. All short integers are aligned on a short word boundary. The numbers section is similar to the boolean flags section. Each ca- pability takes up two bytes, and is stored as a little-endian short in- teger. The strings section is also similar. Each capability is stored as a short integer. The capability value is an index into the string table. The string table is the last section. It contains all of the values of string capabilities referenced in the strings section. Each string is null-terminated. Special characters in ^X or \c notation are stored in their interpreted form, not the printing representation. Padding in- formation $<nn> and parameter information %x are stored intact in unin- terpreted form. EXTENDED STORAGE FORMAT The previous section describes the conventional terminfo binary format. With some minor variations of the offsets (see PORTABILITY), the same binary format is used in all modern UNIX systems. Each system uses a predefined set of boolean, number or string capabilities. The ncurses libraries and applications support extended terminfo binary format, allowing users to define capabilities which are loaded at run- time. This extension is made possible by using the fact that the other implementations stop reading the terminfo data when they have reached the end of the size given in the header. ncurses checks the size, and if it exceeds that due to the predefined data, continues to parse ac- cording to its own scheme. First, it reads the extended header (5 short integers): (1) count of extended boolean capabilities (2) count of extended numeric capabilities (3) count of extended string capabilities (4) count of the items in extended string table (5) size of the extended string table in bytes The count- and size-values for the extended string table include the extended capability names as well as extended capability values. Using the counts and sizes, ncurses allocates arrays and reads data for the extended capabilities in the same order as the header information. The extended string table contains values for string capabilities. Af- ter the end of these values, it contains the names for each of the ex- tended capabilities in order, e.g., booleans, then numbers and finally strings. Applications which manipulate terminal data can use the definitions de- scribed in term_variables(3X) which associate the long capability names with members of a TERMTYPE structure. EXTENDED NUMBER FORMAT On occasion, 16-bit signed integers are not large enough. With ncurses 6.1, a new format was introduced by making a few changes to the legacy format: o a different magic number (octal 01036) o changing the type for the number array from signed 16-bit integers to signed 32-bit integers. To maintain compatibility, the library presents the same data struc- tures to direct users of the TERMTYPE structure as in previous formats. However, that cannot provide callers with the extended numbers. The library uses a similar but hidden data structure TERMTYPE2 to provide data for the terminfo functions. PORTABILITY setupterm Note that it is possible for setupterm to expect a different set of ca- pabilities than are actually present in the file. Either the database may have been updated since setupterm was recompiled (resulting in ex- tra unrecognized entries in the file) or the program may have been re- compiled more recently than the database was updated (resulting in missing entries). The routine setupterm must be prepared for both pos- sibilities - this is why the numbers and sizes are included. Also, new capabilities must always be added at the end of the lists of boolean, number, and string capabilities. Binary format X/Open Curses does not specify a format for the terminfo database. UNIX System V curses used a directory-tree of binary files, one per terminal description. Despite the consistent use of little-endian for numbers and the other- wise self-describing format, it is not wise to count on portability of binary terminfo entries between commercial UNIX versions. The problem is that there are at least three versions of terminfo (under HP-UX, AIX, and OSF/1) which diverged from System V terminfo after SVr1, and have added extension capabilities to the string table that (in the bi- nary format) collide with System V and XSI Curses extensions. See ter- minfo(5) for detailed discussion of terminfo source compatibility is- sues. This implementation is by default compatible with the binary terminfo format used by Solaris curses, except in a few less-used details where it was found that the latter did not match X/Open Curses. The format used by the other Unix versions can be matched by building ncurses with different configuration options. Magic codes The magic number in a binary terminfo file is the first 16-bits (two bytes). Besides making it more reliable for the library to check that a file is terminfo, utilities such as file also use that to tell what the file-format is. System V defined more than one magic number, with 0433, 0435 as screen-dumps (see scr_dump(5)). This implementation uses 01036 as a continuation of that sequence, but with a different high-or- der byte to avoid confusion. The TERMTYPE structure Direct access to the TERMTYPE structure is provided for legacy applica- tions. Portable applications should use the tigetflag and related functions described in curs_terminfo(3X) for reading terminal capabili- ties. Mixed-case terminal names A small number of terminal descriptions use uppercase characters in their names. If the underlying filesystem ignores the difference be- tween uppercase and lowercase, ncurses represents the "first character" of the terminal name used as the intermediate level of a directory tree in (two-character) hexadecimal form. EXAMPLE As an example, here is a description for the Lear-Siegler ADM-3, a pop- ular though rather stupid early terminal: adm3a|lsi adm3a, am, cols#80, lines#24, bel=^G, clear= 32$<1>, cr=^M, cub1=^H, cud1=^J, cuf1=^L, cup=\E=%p1%{32}%+%c%p2%{32}%+%c, cuu1=^K, home=^^, ind=^J, and a hexadecimal dump of the compiled terminal description: 0000 1a 01 10 00 02 00 03 00 82 00 31 00 61 64 6d 33 ........ ..1.adm3 0010 61 7c 6c 73 69 20 61 64 6d 33 61 00 00 01 50 00 a|lsi ad m3a...P. 0020 ff ff 18 00 ff ff 00 00 02 00 ff ff ff ff 04 00 ........ ........ 0030 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff 0a 00 25 00 27 00 ff ff ........ ..%.'... 0040 29 00 ff ff ff ff 2b 00 ff ff 2d 00 ff ff ff ff ).....+. ..-..... 0050 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........ 0060 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........ 0070 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........ 0080 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........ 0090 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........ 00a0 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........ 00b0 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........ 00c0 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........ 00d0 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........ 00e0 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........ 00f0 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........ 0100 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........ 0110 ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ........ ........ 0120 ff ff ff ff ff ff 2f 00 07 00 0d 00 1a 24 3c 31 ....../. .....$<1 0130 3e 00 1b 3d 25 70 31 25 7b 33 32 7d 25 2b 25 63 >..=%p1% {32}%+%c 0140 25 70 32 25 7b 33 32 7d 25 2b 25 63 00 0a 00 1e %p2%{32} %+%c.... 0150 00 08 00 0c 00 0b 00 0a 00 ........ . LIMITS Some limitations: o total compiled entries cannot exceed 4096 bytes in the legacy for- mat. o total compiled entries cannot exceed 32768 bytes in the extended format. o the name field cannot exceed 128 bytes. Compiled entries are limited to 32768 bytes because offsets into the strings table use two-byte integers. The legacy format could have sup- ported 32768-byte entries, but was limited a virtual memory page's 4096 bytes. FILES /etc/terminfo/*/* compiled terminal capability database SEE ALSO ncurses(3NCURSES), terminfo(5). AUTHORS Thomas E. Dickey extended terminfo format for ncurses 5.0 hashed database support for ncurses 5.6 extended number support for ncurses 6.1 Eric S. Raymond documented legacy terminfo format, e.g., from pcurses. term(5) term(7) Miscellaneous Information Manual term(7) NAME term - conventions for naming terminal types DESCRIPTION The environment variable TERM should normally contain the type name of the terminal, console or display-device type you are using. This in- formation is critical for all screen-oriented programs, including your editor and mailer. A default TERM value will be set on a per-line basis by either /etc/inittab (e.g., System-V-like UNIXes) or /etc/ttys (BSD UNIXes). This will nearly always suffice for workstation and microcomputer con- soles. If you use a dialup line, the type of device attached to it may vary. Older UNIX systems pre-set a very dumb terminal type like "dumb" or "dialup" on dialup lines. Newer ones may pre-set "vt100", reflecting the prevalence of DEC VT100-compatible terminals and personal-computer emulators. Modern telnets pass your TERM environment variable from the local side to the remote one. There can be problems if the remote terminfo or termcap entry for your type is not compatible with yours, but this sit- uation is rare and can almost always be avoided by explicitly exporting "vt100" (assuming you are in fact using a VT100-superset console, ter- minal, or terminal emulator). In any case, you are free to override the system TERM setting to your taste in your shell profile. The tset(1) utility may be of assistance; you can give it a set of rules for deducing or requesting a terminal type based on the tty device and baud rate. Setting your own TERM value may also be useful if you have created a custom entry incorporating options (such as visual bell or reverse- video) which you wish to override the system default type for your line. Terminal type descriptions are stored as files of capability data un- derneath /etc/terminfo. To browse a list of all terminal names recog- nized by the system, do toe | more from your shell. These capability files are in a binary format opti- mized for retrieval speed (unlike the old text-based termcap format they replace); to examine an entry, you must use the infocmp(1) com- mand. Invoke it as follows: infocmp entry_name where entry_name is the name of the type you wish to examine (and the name of its capability file the subdirectory of /etc/terminfo named for its first letter). This command dumps a capability file in the text format described by terminfo(5). The first line of a terminfo(5) description gives the names by which terminfo knows a terminal, separated by "|" (pipe-bar) characters with the last name field terminated by a comma. The first name field is the type's primary name, and is the one to use when setting TERM. The last name field (if distinct from the first) is actually a description of the terminal type (it may contain blanks; the others must be single words). Name fields between the first and last (if present) are aliases for the terminal, usually historical names retained for compat- ibility. There are some conventions for how to choose terminal primary names that help keep them informative and unique. Here is a step-by-step guide to naming terminals that also explains how to parse them: First, choose a root name. The root will consist of a lower-case let- ter followed by up to seven lower-case letters or digits. You need to avoid using punctuation characters in root names, because they are used and interpreted as filenames and shell meta-characters (such as !, $, *, ?, etc.) embedded in them may cause odd and unhelpful behavior. The slash (/), or any other character that may be interpreted by anyone's file system (\, $, [, ]), is especially dangerous (terminfo is plat- form-independent, and choosing names with special characters could someday make life difficult for users of a future port). The dot (.) character is relatively safe as long as there is at most one per root name; some historical terminfo names use it. The root name for a terminal or workstation console type should almost always begin with a vendor prefix (such as hp for Hewlett-Packard, wy for Wyse, or att for AT&T terminals), or a common name of the terminal line (vt for the VT series of terminals from DEC, or sun for Sun Mi- crosystems workstation consoles, or regent for the ADDS Regent series. You can list the terminfo tree to see what prefixes are already in com- mon use. The root name prefix should be followed when appropriate by a model number; thus vt100, hp2621, wy50. The root name for a PC-Unix console type should be the OS name, i.e., linux, bsdos, freebsd, netbsd. It should not be console or any other generic that might cause confusion in a multi-platform environment! If a model number follows, it should indicate either the OS release level or the console driver release level. The root name for a terminal emulator (assuming it does not fit one of the standard ANSI or vt100 types) should be the program name or a read- ily recognizable abbreviation of it (i.e., versaterm, ctrm). Following the root name, you may add any reasonable number of hyphen- separated feature suffixes. 2p Has two pages of memory. Likewise 4p, 8p, etc. mc Magic-cookie. Some terminals (notably older Wyses) can only sup- port one attribute without magic-cookie lossage. Their base entry is usually paired with another that has this suffix and uses magic cookies to support multiple attributes. -am Enable auto-margin (right-margin wraparound). -m Mono mode - suppress color support. -na No arrow keys - termcap ignores arrow keys which are actually there on the terminal, so the user can use the arrow keys locally. -nam No auto-margin - suppress am capability. -nl No labels - suppress soft labels. -nsl No status line - suppress status line. -pp Has a printer port which is used. -rv Terminal in reverse video mode (black on white). -s Enable status line. -vb Use visible bell (flash) rather than beep. -w Wide; terminal is in 132-column mode. Conventionally, if your terminal type is a variant intended to specify a line height, that suffix should go first. So, for a hypothetical FuBarCo model 2317 terminal in 30-line mode with reverse video, best form would be fubar-30-rv (rather than, say, "fubar-rv-30"). Terminal types that are written not as standalone entries, but rather as components to be plugged into other entries via use capabilities, are distinguished by using embedded plus signs rather than dashes. Commands which use a terminal type to control display often accept a -T option that accepts a terminal name argument. Such programs should fall back on the TERM environment variable when no -T option is speci- fied. PORTABILITY For maximum compatibility with older System V UNIXes, names and aliases should be unique within the first 14 characters. FILES /etc/terminfo/?/* compiled terminal capability database /etc/inittab tty line initialization (AT&T-like UNIXes) /etc/ttys tty line initialization (BSD-like UNIXes) SEE ALSO ncurses(3NCURSES), terminfo(5), term(5). term(7)
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