# 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  get  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 gets 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 6.1 (patch 20191214).

## AUTHOR

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

                                                                       infocmp(1m)