CHARMAP(5)		   Linux Programmer's Manual		    CHARMAP(5)



NAME
       charmap - character set description file

DESCRIPTION
       A  character set description (charmap) defines all available characters
       and their encodings in a character set.	localedef(1) can use  charmaps
       to create locale variants for different character sets.

   Syntax
       The charmap file starts with a header that may consist of the following
       keywords:

       <code_set_name>
	      is followed by the name of the character map.

       <comment_char>
	      is followed by a character that will  be	used  as  the  comment
	      character	 for  the rest of the file.  It defaults to the number
	      sign (#).

       <escape_char>
	      is followed by a character that should be	 used  as  the	escape
	      character	 for  the  rest	 of  the  file to mark characters that
	      should be interpreted in a special  way.	 It  defaults  to  the
	      backslash (\).

       <mb_cur_max>
	      is followed by the maximum number of bytes for a character.  The
	      default value is 1.

       <mb_cur_min>
	      is followed by the minimum number	 of  bytes  for	 a  character.
	      This value must be less than or equal than <mb_cur_max>.	If not
	      specified, it defaults to <mb_cur_max>.

       The character set definition section starts with the keyword CHARMAP in
       the first column.

       The  following  lines may have one of the two following forms to define
       the character set:

       <character> byte-sequence comment
	      This form defines exactly one character and its  byte  sequence,
	      comment being optional.

       <character>..<character> byte-sequence comment
	      This  form defines a character range and its byte sequence, com-
	      ment being optional.

       The character set definition section ends with the string END CHARMAP.

       The character set definition section may optionally be  followed	 by  a
       section to define widths of characters.

       The  WIDTH_DEFAULT  keyword can be used to define the default width for
       all characters not explicitly listed.  The default character  width  is
       1.

       The  width  section  for	 individual characters starts with the keyword
       WIDTH in the first column.

       The following lines may have one of the two following forms  to	define
       the widths of the characters:

       <character> width
	      This form defines the width of exactly one character.

       <character>...<character> width
	      This form defines the width for all the characters in the range.

       The width definition section ends with the string END WIDTH.

FILES
       /usr/share/i18n/charmaps
	      Usual default character map path.

CONFORMING TO
       POSIX.2.

EXAMPLE
       The Euro sign is defined as follows in the UTF-8 charmap:

       <U20AC>	   /xe2/x82/xac EURO SIGN

SEE ALSO
       iconv(1), locale(1), localedef(1), locale(5), charsets(7)

COLOPHON
       This  page  is  part of release 4.10 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
       description of the project, information about reporting bugs,  and  the
       latest	  version     of     this    page,    can    be	   found    at
       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



GNU				  2016-07-17			    CHARMAP(5)