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diff --git a/man/term.5 b/man/term.5 new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..19af62a350ed --- /dev/null +++ b/man/term.5 @@ -0,0 +1,283 @@ +.\"*************************************************************************** +.\" Copyright (c) 1998-2004,2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc. * +.\" * +.\" Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a * +.\" copy of this software and associated documentation files (the * +.\" "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including * +.\" without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, * +.\" distribute, distribute with modifications, sublicense, and/or sell * +.\" copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is * +.\" furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: * +.\" * +.\" The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included * +.\" in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. * +.\" * +.\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS * +.\" OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF * +.\" MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. * +.\" IN NO EVENT SHALL THE ABOVE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, * +.\" DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR * +.\" OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR * +.\" THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. * +.\" * +.\" Except as contained in this notice, the name(s) of the above copyright * +.\" holders shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the * +.\" sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written * +.\" authorization. * +.\"*************************************************************************** +.\" +.\" $Id: term.5,v 1.19 2006/12/24 18:12:38 tom Exp $ +.TH term 5 +.ds n 5 +.ds d @TERMINFO@ +.SH NAME +term \- format of compiled term file. +.SH SYNOPSIS +.B term +.SH DESCRIPTION +.SS STORAGE LOCATION +Compiled terminfo descriptions are placed under the directory \fB\*d\fP. +Two configurations are supported (when building the ncurses libraries): +.TP 5 +.B directory tree +A two-level scheme is used to avoid a linear search +of a huge \s-1UNIX\s+1 system directory: \fB\*d/c/name\fP where +.I name +is the name of the terminal, and +.I c +is the first character of +.IR name . +Thus, +.I act4 +can be found in the file \fB\*d/a/act4\fP. +Synonyms for the same terminal are implemented by multiple +links to the same compiled file. +.TP 5 +.B hashed database +Using Berkeley database, two types of records are stored: +the terminfo 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. +.IP +If built to write hashed databases, +ncurses can still read terminfo databases organized as a directory tree, +but cannot write entries into the directory tree. +It can write (or rewrite) entries in the hashed database. +.IP +ncurses distinguishes the two cases in the TERMINFO and TERMINFO_DIRS +environment variable by assuming a directory tree for entries that +correspond to an existing directory, +and hashed database otherwise. +.SS 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 ordering +or sign extension are made. +.PP +The compiled file is created with the +.B @TIC@ +program, and read by the routine +.IR setupterm . +The file is divided into six parts: +the header, +terminal names, +boolean flags, +numbers, +strings, +and +string table. +.PP +The header section begins the file. +This section contains six short integers in the format +described below. +These integers are +.RS 5 +.TP 5 +(1) the magic number (octal 0432); +.TP 5 +(2) the size, in bytes, of the names section; +.TP 5 +(3) the number of bytes in the boolean section; +.TP 5 +(4) the number of short integers in the numbers section; +.TP 5 +(5) the number of offsets (short integers) in the strings section; +.TP 5 +(6) the size, in bytes, of the string table. +.RE +.PP +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 the two bytes 0377, 0377; other negative +values are illegal. This value generally +means that the corresponding capability is missing from this terminal. +Note that this format corresponds to the hardware of the \s-1VAX\s+1 +and \s-1PDP\s+1-11 (that is, little-endian machines). +Machines where this does not correspond to the hardware must read the +integers as two bytes and compute the little-endian value. +.PP +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 `|' character. +The section is terminated with an \s-1ASCII NUL\s+1 character. +.PP +The boolean flags have one byte for each flag. +This byte is either 0 or 1 as the flag is present or absent. +The capabilities are in the same order as the file <term.h>. +.PP +Between the boolean section and the number section, +a null byte will be inserted, if necessary, +to ensure that the number section begins on an even byte (this is a +relic of the PDP-11's word-addressed architecture, originally +designed in to avoid IOT traps induced by addressing a word on an +odd byte boundary). +All short integers are aligned on a short word boundary. +.PP +The numbers section is similar to the flags section. +Each capability takes up two bytes, +and is stored as a little-endian short integer. +If the value represented is -1, the capability is taken to be missing. +.PP +The strings section is also similar. +Each capability is stored as a short integer, in the format above. +A value of -1 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 \ec notation are stored in their +interpreted form, not the printing representation. +Padding information $<nn> and parameter information %x are +stored intact in uninterpreted form. +.PP +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. +.SS 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. +.PP +The ncurses libraries and applications support extended terminfo binary format, +allowing users to define capabilities which are loaded at runtime. 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 according to its own scheme. +.PP +First, it reads the extended header (5 short integers): +.RS 5 +.TP 5 +(1) +count of extended boolean capabilities +.TP 5 +(2) +count of extended numeric capabilities +.TP 5 +(3) +count of extended string capabilities +.TP 5 +(4) +size of the extended string table in bytes. +.TP 5 +(5) +last offset of the extended string table in bytes. +.RE +.PP +Using the counts and sizes, ncurses allocates arrays and reads data +for the extended capabilties in the same order as the header information. +.PP +The extended string table contains values for string capabilities. +After the end of these values, it contains the names for each of +the extended capabilities in order, e.g., booleans, then numbers and +finally strings. +. +.SH PORTABILITY +Note that it is possible for +.I setupterm +to expect a different set of capabilities +than are actually present in the file. +Either the database may have been updated since +.I 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 +.I 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 lists +of boolean, number, and string capabilities. +.PP +Despite the consistent use of little-endian for numbers and the otherwise +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 binary format) collide with +System V and XSI Curses extensions. See \fBterminfo\fR(\*n) for detailed +discussion of terminfo source compatibility issues. +.SH EXAMPLE +As an example, here is a hex dump of the description for the Lear-Siegler +ADM-3, a popular though rather stupid early terminal: +.nf +.sp +adm3a|lsi adm3a, + am, + cols#80, lines#24, + bel=^G, clear=\032$<1>, cr=^M, cub1=^H, cud1=^J, + cuf1=^L, cup=\\E=%p1%{32}%+%c%p2%{32}%+%c, cuu1=^K, + home=^^, ind=^J, +.sp +.ft CW +\s-20000 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 ........ .\s+2 +.ft R +.fi +.sp +.SH LIMITS +Some limitations: total compiled entries cannot exceed 4096 bytes. +The name field cannot exceed 128 bytes. +.SH FILES +\*d/*/* compiled terminal capability data base +.SH SEE ALSO +\fBcurses\fR(3X), \fBterminfo\fR(\*n). +.SH AUTHORS +Thomas E. Dickey +.br +extended terminfo format for ncurses 5.0 +.br +hashed database support for ncurses 5.6 +.sp +Eric S. Raymond +.\"# +.\"# The following sets edit modes for GNU EMACS +.\"# Local Variables: +.\"# mode:nroff +.\"# fill-column:79 +.\"# End: |