infocmp(1M)							   infocmp(1M)



NAME
       infocmp - compare or print out terminfo descriptions

SYNOPSIS
       infocmp [-1CEFGILTUVcdegilnpqrtux]
	     [-v n] [-s d| i| l| c] [-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 will depend on the type of the capa-
       bility: F for boolean variables, -1 for integer variables, and NULL for
       string variables.

       The  -d	option	produces  a  list of each capability that is different
       between two entries.  This option is  useful  to	 show  the  difference
       between two entries, created by different people, for the same or simi-
       lar terminals.

       The -c option produces a list of each capability that is common between
       two  entries.   Capabilities that are not set are ignored.  This option
       can be used as a quick check to see if the -u option is worth using.

       The -n option produces a list of each capability	 that  is  in  neither
       entry.	If  no termnames are given, the environment variable TERM will
       be used for both of the termnames.  This can be used as a  quick	 check
       to see if anything was left out of a description.

   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

       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.

       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.

       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]
       The  location of the compiled terminfo database is taken from the envi-
       ronment variable TERMINFO .  If the variable is	not  defined,  or  the
       terminal	 is  not found in that location, the system terminfo database,
       in /usr/share/terminfo, will be used.  The options -A  and  -B  may  be
       used  to	 override  this location.  The -A option will set TERMINFO for
       the first termname and the -B option will set TERMINFO  for  the	 other
       termnames.   With  this,	 it  is possible to compare descriptions for a
       terminal with the same name located in two different  databases.	  This
       is  useful  for comparing descriptions for the same terminal created by
       different people.

   Other Options
       -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.

       -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.  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	recog-
	    nized  actions translated into {}-bracketed descriptions.  Here is
	    a list of the DEC/ANSI special sequences recognized: i.

			 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 `+' (turn on) or `-' (turn off).

       An SGR0 designates an empty highlight sequence (equivalent to {SGR:NOR-
       MAL}).

       -l   Set output format to terminfo.

       -p   Ignore padding specifications when comparing strings.

       -q   Make the comparison listing shorter by omitting  subheadings,  and
	    using  "-"	for  absent capabilities, "@" for canceled rather than
	    "NULL".

       -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.  Available terminfo subsets are  "SVr1",  "Ultrix",
	    "HP", and "AIX"; see terminfo(5) for details.  You can also choose
	    the subset "BSD" which  selects  only  capabilities	 with  termcap
	    equivalents recognized by 4.4BSD.

       -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.  Higher values of n induce greater verbosity.

       -w width
	    changes the output to width characters.

       -x   print information for user-defined capabilities.  These are exten-
	    sions to the terminfo repertoire which can be loaded using the  -x
	    option of tic.

FILES
       /usr/share/terminfo Compiled terminal description database.

EXTENSIONS
       The  -E,	 -F,  -G,  -R,	-T,  -V, -a, -e, -f, -g, -i, -l, -p, -q and -t
       options are not supported in SVr4 curses.

       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).

       This describes ncurses version 5.7 (patch 20090207).

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



								   infocmp(1M)