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<H1 class="no-header">tic 1m 2025-11-11 ncurses 6.6 User commands</H1>
<PRE>
<STRONG><A HREF="tic.1m.html">tic(1m)</A></STRONG> User commands <STRONG><A HREF="tic.1m.html">tic(1m)</A></STRONG>
</PRE><H2><a name="h2-NAME">NAME</a></H2><PRE>
<STRONG>tic</STRONG> - compile terminal descriptions for <EM>terminfo</EM> or <EM>termcap</EM>
</PRE><H2><a name="h2-SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a></H2><PRE>
<STRONG>tic</STRONG> [<STRONG>-01acCDfgGIKLNqrstTUVWx</STRONG>] [<STRONG>-e</STRONG> <EM>terminal-type-list</EM>] [<STRONG>-o</STRONG> <EM>dir</EM>] [<STRONG>-Q</STRONG>[<EM>n</EM>]]
[<STRONG>-R</STRONG> <EM>subset</EM>] [<STRONG>-v</STRONG>[<EM>n</EM>]] [<STRONG>-w</STRONG>[<EM>n</EM>]] <EM>file</EM>
</PRE><H2><a name="h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a></H2><PRE>
<STRONG>tic</STRONG> translates a <EM>terminfo</EM> file from source format into the compiled
format used by the <STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">ncurses(3x)</A></STRONG> library.
As described in <STRONG><A HREF="term.5.html">term(5)</A></STRONG>, the database may be either a directory tree
(one file per terminal entry) or a hashed database (one record per
entry). The <STRONG>tic</STRONG> command writes only one type of entry, depending on
how it was built.
<STRONG>o</STRONG> For directory trees, the top-level directory, such as
<EM>/usr/share/terminfo</EM>, specifies the location of the database.
<STRONG>o</STRONG> For hashed databases, a filename is needed. If the given file is
not found by that name, but can be found by adding the suffix
".db", then that is used.
The default name for the hashed database is the same as the default
directory name (only adding a ".db" suffix).
In either case (directory or hashed database), <STRONG>tic</STRONG> will create the
container if it does not exist. For a directory, this would be the
"terminfo" leaf, versus a <EM>terminfo.db</EM> file.
The results are normally placed in the system <EM>terminfo</EM> database
<EM>/usr/share/terminfo</EM>. The compiled terminal description can be placed
in a different <EM>terminfo</EM> database. There are two ways to achieve this:
<STRONG>o</STRONG> First, you may override the system default either by using the <STRONG>-o</STRONG>
option, or by setting the variable <EM>TERMINFO</EM> in the process
environment to a valid database location.
<STRONG>o</STRONG> Secondly, if <STRONG>tic</STRONG> cannot write in <EM>/usr/share/terminfo</EM> or the
location specified using your <EM>TERMINFO</EM> variable, it looks for the
directory <EM>$HOME/.terminfo</EM> (or hashed database <EM>$HOME/.terminfo.db</EM>);
if that location exists, the entry is placed there.
Libraries that read <EM>terminfo</EM> entries are expected to check in
succession
<STRONG>o</STRONG> a location specified by the <EM>TERMINFO</EM> environment variable,
<STRONG>o</STRONG> <EM>$HOME/.terminfo</EM>,
<STRONG>o</STRONG> directories listed in the <EM>TERMINFO</EM><STRONG>_</STRONG><EM>DIRS</EM> environment variable,
<STRONG>o</STRONG> a compiled-in list of directories (<EM>/usr/share/terminfo</EM>), and
<STRONG>o</STRONG> the system <EM>terminfo</EM> database (<EM>/usr/share/terminfo</EM>).
Section "Fetching Compiled Descriptions" in <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG> goes into
further detail.
</PRE><H3><a name="h3-Aliases">Aliases</a></H3><PRE>
<STRONG>tic</STRONG> is the same program as <STRONG>infotocap</STRONG> and <STRONG>captoinfo</STRONG>; usually those are
linked to, or copied from, this program.
<STRONG>o</STRONG> When invoked as <STRONG>infotocap</STRONG>, <STRONG>tic</STRONG> sets the <STRONG>-I</STRONG> option.
<STRONG>o</STRONG> When invoked as <STRONG>captoinfo</STRONG>, <STRONG>tic</STRONG> sets the <STRONG>-C</STRONG> option.
</PRE><H2><a name="h2-OPTIONS">OPTIONS</a></H2><PRE>
<STRONG>-0</STRONG> restricts the output to a single line.
<STRONG>-1</STRONG> restricts the output to a single column.
<STRONG>-a</STRONG> tells <STRONG>tic</STRONG> to retain commented-out capabilities rather than
discarding them. Capabilities are commented by prefixing them
with a period. <STRONG>-a</STRONG> implies <STRONG>-x</STRONG>, because <STRONG>tic</STRONG> treats the commented-
out entries as user-defined names. If the source is in <EM>termcap</EM>
format, <STRONG>tic</STRONG> accepts the 2-character names required by version 6.
Otherwise these are ignored.
<STRONG>-C</STRONG> Force source translation to <EM>termcap</EM> format. Note: this option
differs from the <STRONG>-C</STRONG> option of <STRONG><A HREF="infocmp.1m.html">infocmp(1m)</A></STRONG> in that it does not
merely translate capability names, but also translates <EM>terminfo</EM>
string capability values to <EM>termcap</EM> format. <STRONG>tic</STRONG> leaves
capabilities that are not translatable in the entry under their
<EM>terminfo</EM> names, but commented out with two preceding dots. The
actual format used incorporates some improvements for escaped
characters from <EM>terminfo</EM> format. For a stricter BSD-compatible
translation, specify <STRONG>-K</STRONG> as well.
If <STRONG>-C</STRONG> is combined with <STRONG>-c</STRONG>, <STRONG>tic</STRONG> makes additional checks,
reporting cases where <EM>terminfo</EM> capability values do not have an
exact equivalent in <EM>termcap</EM> syntax. For example:
<STRONG>o</STRONG> <STRONG>sgr</STRONG> usually does not convert, because <EM>termcap</EM> is unable to
work with more than two parameters, and because <EM>termcap</EM> <EM>'s</EM>
language for encoding parameterized capabilities lacks many
of <EM>terminfo</EM>'s arithmetic and logical operators.
<STRONG>-c</STRONG> tells <STRONG>tic</STRONG> to perform only validation of <EM>file</EM> <EM>,</EM> including syntax
problems and invalid "<STRONG>use</STRONG>" references; no output is produced.
If you specify <STRONG>-C</STRONG> (<STRONG>-I</STRONG>) with this option, <STRONG>tic</STRONG> warns about entries
that, after "<STRONG>use</STRONG>" resolution, exceed 1023 (4096) bytes. Due to
a fixed buffer length in older <EM>termcap</EM> libraries, as well as
buggy checking of the buffer length (and a documented limit in
<EM>terminfo</EM>), these entries may cause core dumps with other
implementations.
<STRONG>tic</STRONG> checks string capabilities to ensure that those with
parameters are valid expressions. It validates only standard
string capabilities, ignoring those defined with the <STRONG>-x</STRONG> option.
<STRONG>-D</STRONG> tells <STRONG>tic</STRONG> to print the database locations that it knows about,
and exit. The first location shown is the one to which it would
write compiled terminal descriptions. If <STRONG>tic</STRONG> is not able to
find a writable database location according to the rules
summarized above, it will print a diagnostic and exit with an
error rather than printing a list of database locations.
<STRONG>-e</STRONG> <EM>list</EM>
Limit writes and translations to the comma-separated <EM>list</EM> of
terminal types. If any name or alias of a terminal matches one
of the names in the list, the entry will be written or
translated as normal. Otherwise no output will be generated for
it. The option value is interpreted as a file containing the
list if it contains a '/'. (Note: depending on how <STRONG>tic</STRONG> was
compiled, this option may require <STRONG>-I</STRONG> or <STRONG>-C</STRONG>.)
<STRONG>-f</STRONG> Display complex terminfo strings which contain
if/then/else/endif expressions indented for readability.
<STRONG>-G</STRONG> Display constant literals in decimal form rather than their
character equivalents.
<STRONG>-g</STRONG> Display constant character literals in quoted form rather than
their decimal equivalents.
<STRONG>-I</STRONG> Force source translation to terminfo format.
<STRONG>-K</STRONG> Suppress some longstanding <EM>ncurses</EM> extensions to termcap format,
e.g., "\s" for space.
<STRONG>-L</STRONG> Force source translation to terminfo format using the long C
variable names listed in <<STRONG>term.h</STRONG>>
<STRONG>-N</STRONG> Disable smart defaults. Normally, when translating from termcap
to terminfo, the compiler makes a number of assumptions about
the defaults of string capabilities <STRONG>reset1_string</STRONG>,
<STRONG>carriage_return</STRONG>, <STRONG>cursor_left</STRONG>, <STRONG>cursor_down</STRONG>, <STRONG>scroll_forward</STRONG>, <STRONG>tab</STRONG>,
<STRONG>newline</STRONG>, <STRONG>key_backspace</STRONG>, <STRONG>key_left</STRONG>, and <STRONG>key_down</STRONG>, then attempts to
use obsolete termcap capabilities to deduce correct values. It
also normally suppresses output of obsolete termcap capabilities
such as <STRONG>bs</STRONG>. This option forces a more literal translation that
also preserves the obsolete capabilities.
<STRONG>-o</STRONG><EM>dir</EM> Write compiled entries to given database location. Overrides
the <EM>TERMINFO</EM> environment variable.
<STRONG>-Q</STRONG><EM>n</EM> 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
<STRONG>-q</STRONG> Suppress comments and blank lines when showing translated
source.
<STRONG>-R</STRONG><EM>subset</EM>
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 outright broken ports like AIX 3.x that have their own
extensions incompatible with SVr4/XSI.
Available subsets are
"SVr1", "Ultrix", "HP", "BSD", and "AIX"
See <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG> for details.
<STRONG>-r</STRONG> Force entry resolution (so there are no remaining tc
capabilities) even when doing translation to termcap format.
This may be needed if you are preparing a termcap file for a
termcap library (such as GNU termcap through version 1.3 or BSD
termcap through 4.3BSD) that does not handle multiple tc
capabilities per entry.
<STRONG>-s</STRONG> Summarize the compile by showing the database location into
which entries are written, and the number of entries which are
compiled.
<STRONG>-T</STRONG> 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).
<STRONG>-t</STRONG> tells <STRONG>tic</STRONG> to discard commented-out capabilities. Normally when
translating from terminfo to termcap, untranslatable
capabilities are commented-out.
<STRONG>-U</STRONG> tells <STRONG>tic</STRONG> to not post-process the data after parsing the source
file. Normally, it infers data which is commonly missing in
older terminfo data, or in termcaps.
<STRONG>-V</STRONG> reports the version of <EM>ncurses</EM> which was used in this program,
and exits.
<STRONG>-v</STRONG><EM>n</EM> specifies that (verbose) output be written to standard error
trace information showing <STRONG>tic</STRONG>'s progress.
The optional parameter <EM>n</EM> is a number from 1 to 9, inclusive,
indicating the desired level of detail of information.
<STRONG>o</STRONG> If <EM>ncurses</EM> is built without tracing support, the optional
parameter is ignored.
<STRONG>o</STRONG> If <EM>n</EM> is omitted, the default level is 1.
<STRONG>o</STRONG> If <EM>n</EM> is specified and greater than 1, the level of detail is
increased, and the output is written (with tracing
information) to the "trace" file.
The debug flag levels are as follows:
1 Names of files created and linked
2 Information related to the "use" facility
3 Statistics from the hashing algorithm
4 Details of extended capabilities
5 (unused)
6 (unused)
7 Entries into the string-table
8 List of tokens encountered by scanner
9 All values computed in construction of the hash table
<STRONG>-W</STRONG> By itself, the <STRONG>-w</STRONG> option will not force long strings to be
wrapped. Use the <STRONG>-W</STRONG> option to do this.
If you specify both <STRONG>-f</STRONG> and <STRONG>-W</STRONG> options, the latter is ignored
when <STRONG>-f</STRONG> has already split the line.
<STRONG>-w</STRONG><EM>n</EM> specifies the width of the output. The parameter is optional.
If it is omitted, it defaults to 60.
<STRONG>-x</STRONG> Treat unknown capabilities as user-defined (see <STRONG><A HREF="user_caps.5.html">user_caps(5)</A></STRONG>).
That is, if you supply a capability name which <STRONG>tic</STRONG> does not
recognize, it will infer its type (Boolean, number or string)
from the syntax and make an extended table entry for that.
User-defined capability strings whose name begins with "k" are
treated as function keys.
</PRE><H3><a name="h3-Parameters">Parameters</a></H3><PRE>
<EM>file</EM> contains one or more <EM>terminfo</EM> terminal descriptions in source
format; see <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>. Each description in the file describes
the capabilities of a particular terminal type.
If <EM>file</EM> is "-", the data are read from the standard input
stream. The <EM>file</EM> parameter may also be the path of a character
device.
</PRE><H3><a name="h3-Processing">Processing</a></H3><PRE>
<STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG> documents all but one of the capabilities recognized by
<STRONG>tic</STRONG>. The exception is the <STRONG>use</STRONG> capability, which enables a terminal
type description to incorporate others by reference.
<STRONG>tic</STRONG> serially reads and compiles terminal type descriptions; at any
given time, the program compiles at most one <EM>current</EM> entry. When <STRONG>tic</STRONG>
encounters a <STRONG>use=</STRONG><EM>entry-name</EM> field in the current entry, it reads the
compiled description of <EM>entry-name</EM> from <EM>/usr/share/terminfo</EM> to complete
the current entry. If <STRONG>tic</STRONG> has already compiled a description of <EM>entry-</EM>
<EM>name</EM> preceding the current entry in <EM>file</EM>, <STRONG>tic</STRONG> uses it preferentially.
<STRONG>tic</STRONG> duplicates the capabilities in <EM>entry-name</EM> for the current entry,
excepting those that the current entry explicitly defines. The
foregoing has implications for capability cancellation. When <EM>entry-1</EM>
declares "<STRONG>use=</STRONG><EM>entry-2</EM>", any canceled capabilities in <EM>entry-2</EM> must also
appear in <EM>entry-1</EM> prior to "<STRONG>use=</STRONG><EM>entry-2</EM>" for these capabilities to be
canceled in <EM>entry-1</EM>.
Compiled entries cannot exceed 4096 bytes in the legacy storage format,
or 32768 using the extended number format. The name field cannot
exceed 512 bytes. Terminal names exceeding the maximum alias length
(32 characters on systems with long filenames, 14 characters otherwise)
will be truncated to the maximum alias length and a warning message
will be printed.
</PRE><H2><a name="h2-FILES">FILES</a></H2><PRE>
<EM>/usr/share/terminfo</EM>
compiled terminal description database
</PRE><H2><a name="h2-NOTES">NOTES</a></H2><PRE>
There is some evidence that historic <STRONG>tic</STRONG> implementations treated
description fields with no whitespace in them as additional aliases or
short names. This <STRONG>tic</STRONG> does not do that, but it does warn when
description fields may be treated that way and check them for dangerous
characters.
</PRE><H2><a name="h2-EXTENSIONS">EXTENSIONS</a></H2><PRE>
Unlike the SVr4 <EM>tic</EM> command, <EM>ncurses</EM> <EM>tic</EM> can compile <EM>termcap</EM> sources.
In fact, entries in <EM>terminfo</EM> and <EM>termcap</EM> syntax can be mixed in a
single source file. See <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG> for the list of <EM>termcap</EM> capability
names <EM>ncurses</EM> <STRONG>tic</STRONG> treats as equivalent to <EM>terminfo</EM> names.
The SVr4 man pages are not clear on the resolution rules for "<STRONG>use</STRONG>"
capabilities. <EM>ncurses</EM>'s <STRONG>tic</STRONG> finds "<STRONG>use</STRONG>" targets anywhere in the source
file, or anywhere in the file tree rooted at the location in the
<EM>TERMINFO</EM> environment variable (if <EM>TERMINFO</EM> is defined), or in the
user's <EM>$HOME/.terminfo</EM> database (if it exists), or (finally) anywhere
in the system's collection of compiled entries.
The error messages from <EM>ncurses</EM> <STRONG>tic</STRONG> have the same format as GNU C error
messages, and can be parsed by GNU Emacs's "compile" facility.
Aside from <STRONG>-c</STRONG> and <STRONG>-v</STRONG>, options are not portable.
<STRONG>o</STRONG> Most of <EM>ncurses</EM> <STRONG>tic</STRONG>'s options are not supported by SVr4 <EM>tic</EM>.
<STRONG>-0</STRONG> <STRONG>-1</STRONG> <STRONG>-C</STRONG> <STRONG>-G</STRONG> <STRONG>-I</STRONG> <STRONG>-N</STRONG> <STRONG>-R</STRONG> <STRONG>-T</STRONG> <STRONG>-V</STRONG> <STRONG>-a</STRONG> <STRONG>-e</STRONG> <STRONG>-f</STRONG> <STRONG>-g</STRONG> <STRONG>-o</STRONG> <STRONG>-r</STRONG> <STRONG>-s</STRONG> <STRONG>-t</STRONG> <STRONG>-x</STRONG>
<STRONG>o</STRONG> NetBSD <EM>tic</EM> supports a few of the <EM>ncurses</EM> <STRONG>tic</STRONG> options.
<STRONG>-a</STRONG> <STRONG>-o</STRONG> <STRONG>-x</STRONG>
<STRONG>o</STRONG> NetBSD <EM>tic</EM> also adds <STRONG>-S</STRONG>, a feature which does the same thing as
<EM>ncurses</EM> <STRONG>infocmp</STRONG>'s <STRONG>-e</STRONG> and <STRONG>-E</STRONG> options.
SVr4 <EM>tic</EM>'s <STRONG>-c</STRONG> mode does not report bad "<STRONG>use</STRONG>" links.
SVr4 does not compile entries to or read entries from your
<EM>$HOME/.terminfo</EM> database unless the <EM>TERMINFO</EM> environment variable is
explicitly set to it.
</PRE><H2><a name="h2-PORTABILITY">PORTABILITY</a></H2><PRE>
X/Open Curses Issue 7 (2009) provides a brief description of <STRONG>tic</STRONG>. It
lists one option: <STRONG>-c</STRONG>. The omission of <STRONG>-v</STRONG> is unexpected. The change
history states that the description is derived from Tru64. According
to its manual pages, that system also supported the <STRONG>-v</STRONG> option.
Shortly after Issue 7 was released, Tru64 was discontinued. As of
2019, the surviving implementations of <STRONG>tic</STRONG> are SVr4 (AIX, HP-UX and
Solaris), <EM>ncurses</EM> and NetBSD curses. The SVr4 <STRONG>tic</STRONG> programs all support
the <STRONG>-v</STRONG> option. The NetBSD <STRONG>tic</STRONG> program follows X/Open's documentation,
omitting the <STRONG>-v</STRONG> option.
The X/Open rationale states that some implementations of <STRONG>tic</STRONG> read
terminal descriptions from the standard input if the <EM>file</EM> parameter is
omitted. None of these implementations do that. Further, it comments
that some may choose to read from "./terminfo.src" but that is
obsolescent behavior from SVr2, and is not (for example) a documented
feature of SVr3.
</PRE><H2><a name="h2-HISTORY">HISTORY</a></H2><PRE>
System V Release 2 provided a <STRONG>tic</STRONG> utility. It accepted a single
option: <STRONG>-v</STRONG> (optionally followed by a number). According to Ross
Ridge's comment in <EM>mytinfo</EM>, this version of <STRONG>tic</STRONG> was unable to represent
canceled capabilities.
System V Release 3 provided a different <STRONG>tic</STRONG> utility, written by Pavel
Curtis, (originally named "compile" in <EM>pcurses</EM>). This added an option
<STRONG>-c</STRONG> to check the file for errors, with the caveat that errors in "use="
links would not be reported. System V Release 3 documented a few
warning messages which did not appear in <EM>pcurses</EM>. While the program
itself was changed little as development continued with System V
Release 4, the table of capabilities grew from 180 (<EM>pcurses</EM>) to 464
(Solaris).
In early development of <EM>ncurses</EM> (1993), Zeyd Ben-Halim used the table
from <EM>mytinfo</EM> to extend the <EM>pcurses</EM> table to 469 capabilities (456
matched SVr4, 8 were only in SVr4, 13 were not in SVr4). Of those 13,
11 were ultimately discarded (perhaps to match the draft of X/Open
Curses). The exceptions were <STRONG>memory_lock_above</STRONG> and <STRONG>memory_unlock</STRONG> (see
<STRONG><A HREF="user_caps.5.html">user_caps(5)</A></STRONG>).
Eric Raymond incorporated parts of <EM>mytinfo</EM> into <EM>ncurses</EM> to implement
the termcap-to-terminfo source conversion, and extended that to begin
development of the corresponding terminfo-to-termcap source conversion,
Thomas Dickey completed that development over the course of several
years.
In 1999, Thomas Dickey added the <STRONG>-x</STRONG> option to support user-defined
capabilities.
In 2010, Roy Marples provided a <STRONG>tic</STRONG> program and terminfo library for
NetBSD. That implementation adapts several features from <EM>ncurses</EM>,
including <STRONG>tic</STRONG>'s <STRONG>-x</STRONG> option.
The <STRONG>-c</STRONG> option tells <STRONG>tic</STRONG> to check for problems in the terminfo source
file. Continued development provides additional checks:
<STRONG>o</STRONG> <EM>pcurses</EM> had 8 warnings.
<STRONG>o</STRONG> <EM>ncurses</EM> in 1996 had 16 warnings.
<STRONG>o</STRONG> Solaris (SVr4) <EM>curses</EM> has 28 warnings.
<STRONG>o</STRONG> NetBSD <EM>tic</EM> in 2019 has 19 warnings.
<STRONG>o</STRONG> <EM>ncurses</EM> in 2019 has 96 warnings.
The checking done in <EM>ncurses</EM>'s <STRONG>tic</STRONG> helps with the conversion to
termcap, as well as pointing out errors and inconsistencies. It is
also used to ensure consistency with the user-defined capabilities.
There are 527 distinct capabilities in <EM>ncurses</EM>'s terminal database; 128
of those are user-defined.
</PRE><H2><a name="h2-AUTHORS">AUTHORS</a></H2><PRE>
Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com> and
Thomas E. Dickey <dickey@invisible-island.net>
</PRE><H2><a name="h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></H2><PRE>
<STRONG><A HREF="captoinfo.1m.html">captoinfo(1m)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="infocmp.1m.html">infocmp(1m)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="infotocap.1m.html">infotocap(1m)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="toe.1m.html">toe(1m)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">curses(3x)</A></STRONG>,
<STRONG><A HREF="term.5.html">term(5)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="user_caps.5.html">user_caps(5)</A></STRONG>
ncurses 6.6 2025-11-11 <STRONG><A HREF="tic.1m.html">tic(1m)</A></STRONG>
</PRE>
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