ginfocmp - compare or print out terminfo descriptions
ginfocmp [-1CDEFGIKLTUVWcdegilnpqrtux]
[-v n] [-s d| i| l| c] [-Q
n] [-R subset]
[-w width] [-A directory]
[-B directory]
[termname...]
ginfocmp can be used to compare a binary terminfo entry with other
terminfo 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.
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.
ginfocmp 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 capability:
- F for missing boolean variables
- 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
capability value.
- The -u option provides a related output, showing the first terminal
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, ginfocmp uses the environment
variable TERM for each of the termnames.
The -I, -L, and -C options will produce a source listing
for each terminal 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. ginfocmp 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. ginfocmp 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.
Mandatory 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 terminfo 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 characters 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
capability, not all capabilities are output. Mandatory padding is not
supported. 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 |
The -u option produces a terminfo source description of the first
terminal termname which is relative to the sum of the descriptions
given by the entries for the other terminals termnames. It does this by
analyzing 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 ginfocmp will show what can be done to
change one description to be relative to the other.
A capability will be 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 will be 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 terminfo compiler gtic does a left-to-right scan of the
capabilities, specifying 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. ginfocmp 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 ginfocmp 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. ginfocmp will flag any other termname
use= fields that were not needed.
Like other ncurses utilities, ginfocmp looks for the terminal
descriptions 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:
- The -A option sets the location for the first termname
- The -B option sets the location for the other
termnames.
Using these options, it is possible to compare descriptions for a
terminal 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.
- -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 ginfocmp to retain commented-out capabilities rather than
discarding them. Capabilities are commented by prefixing them with a
period.
- -D
- tells ginfocmp 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 capability structure in
the <term.h>). This option is useful for preparing 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 structure.
- -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 character
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 starting/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
- “+” (turn on) or
- “-” (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 compiled
(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:
ginfocmp -0 -q -Q2
- -q
- This makes the output a little shorter:
- Make the comparison listing shorter by omitting subheadings, and using
“-” for absent capabilities, “@” for canceled
rather than “NULL”.
- However, show differences between absent and cancelled capabilities.
- 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.
- 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. The -C
option sets the “BSD” subset as a side-effect.
- If you select any other value for -R, it is the same as no subset,
i.e., all capabilities are used. The -I option likewise 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 terminfo
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 terminfo).
- -t
- tells gtic to discard commented-out capabilities. Normally when
translating from terminfo to termcap, untranslatable capabilities are
commented-out.
- -U
- tells ginfocmp to not post-process the data after parsing the
source file. This feature helps when comparing the actual contents of two
source files, since it excludes the inferences that ginfocmp 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 gtic.
- /usr/gnu/share/terminfo
- Compiled terminal description database.
Although System V Release 2 provided a terminfo library, it had no documented
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
equivalent ginfocmp for ncurses. In addition, he added a few new
features such as:
- the -e option, to support fallback (compiled-in) terminal
descriptions
- 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 capabilities.
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.
X/Open Curses, Issue 7 (2009) provides a description of infocmp. It does
not mention the options used for converting to termcap format.
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
capabilities. 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.
Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com> and
Thomas E. Dickey <dickey@invisible-island.net>