termcap.info-1 [plain text]

This is Info file ./termcap.info, produced by Makeinfo-1.55 from the
input file ./termcap.texi.

This file documents the termcap library of the GNU system.

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manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
preserved on all copies.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of
this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that
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File: termcap.info, Node: Top, Next: Introduction, Prev: (dir), Up: (dir)

* Menu:

* Introduction:: What is termcap? Why this manual?
* Library:: The termcap library functions.
* Data Base:: What terminal descriptions in `/etc/termcap' look like.
* Capabilities:: Definitions of the individual terminal capabilities:
how to write them in descriptions, and how to use
their values to do display updating.
* Summary:: Brief table of capability names and their meanings.
* Var Index:: Index of C functions and variables.
* Cap Index:: Index of termcap capabilities.
* Index:: Concept index.

-- The Detailed Node Listing --

The Termcap Library

* Preparation:: Preparing to use the termcap library.
* Find:: Finding the description of the terminal being used.
* Interrogate:: Interrogating the description for particular capabilities.
* Initialize:: Initialization for output using termcap.
* Padding:: Outputting padding.
* Parameters:: Encoding parameters such as cursor positions.

Padding

* Why Pad:: Explanation of padding.
* Not Enough:: When there is not enough padding.
* Describe Padding:: The data base says how much padding a terminal needs.
* Output Padding:: Using `tputs' to output the needed padding.

Filling In Parameters

* Encode Parameters:: The language for encoding parameters.
* Using Parameters:: Outputting a string command with parameters.

Sending Display Commands with Parameters

* tparam:: The general case, for GNU termcap only.
* tgoto:: The special case of cursor motion.

The Format of the Data Base

* Format:: Overall format of a terminal description.
* Capability Format:: Format of capabilities within a description.
* Naming:: Naming conventions for terminal types.
* Inheriting:: Inheriting part of a description from
a related terminal type.
* Changing:: When changes in the data base take effect.

Definitions of the Terminal Capabilities

* Basic:: Basic characteristics.
* Screen Size:: Screen size, and what happens when it changes.
* Cursor Motion:: Various ways to move the cursor.
* Wrapping:: What happens if you write a character in the last column.
* Scrolling:: Pushing text up and down on the screen.
* Windows:: Limiting the part of the window that output affects.
* Clearing:: Erasing one or many lines.
* Insdel Line:: Making new blank lines in mid-screen; deleting lines.
* Insdel Char:: Inserting and deleting characters within a line.
* Standout:: Highlighting some of the text.
* Underlining:: Underlining some of the text.
* Cursor Visibility:: Making the cursor more or less easy to spot.
* Bell:: Attracts user's attention; not localized on the screen.
* Keypad:: Recognizing when function keys or arrows are typed.
* Meta Key:: META acts like an extra shift key.
* Initialization:: Commands used to initialize or reset the terminal.
* Pad Specs:: Info for the kernel on how much padding is needed.
* Status Line:: A status line displays "background" information.
* Half-Line:: Moving by half-lines, for superscripts and subscripts.
* Printer:: Controlling auxiliary printers of display terminals.

File: termcap.info, Node: Introduction, Next: Library, Prev: Top, Up: Top

Introduction
************

"Termcap" is a library and data base that enables programs to use
display terminals in a terminal-independent manner. It originated in
Berkeley Unix.

The termcap data base describes the capabilities of hundreds of
different display terminals in great detail. Some examples of the
information recorded for a terminal could include how many columns wide
it is, what string to send to move the cursor to an arbitrary position
(including how to encode the row and column numbers), how to scroll the
screen up one or several lines, and how much padding is needed for such
a scrolling operation.

The termcap library is provided for easy access this data base in
programs that want to do terminal-independent character-based display
output.

This manual describes the GNU version of the termcap library, which
has some extensions over the Unix version. All the extensions are
identified as such, so this manual also tells you how to use the Unix
termcap.

The GNU version of the termcap library is available free as source
code, for use in free programs, and runs on Unix and VMS systems (at
least). You can find it in the GNU Emacs distribution in the files
`termcap.c' and `tparam.c'.

This manual was written for the GNU project, whose goal is to
develop a complete free operating system upward-compatible with Unix
for user programs. The project is approximately two thirds complete.
For more information on the GNU project, including the GNU Emacs editor
and the mostly-portable optimizing C compiler, send one dollar to

Free Software Foundation
675 Mass Ave
Cambridge, MA 02139

File: termcap.info, Node: Library, Next: Data Base, Prev: Introduction, Up: Top

The Termcap Library
*******************

The termcap library is the application programmer's interface to the
termcap data base. It contains functions for the following purposes:

* Finding the description of the user's terminal type (`tgetent').

* Interrogating the description for information on various topics
(`tgetnum', `tgetflag', `tgetstr').

* Computing and performing padding (`tputs').

* Encoding numeric parameters such as cursor positions into the
terminal-specific form required for display commands (`tparam',
`tgoto').

* Menu:

File: termcap.info, Node: Preparation, Next: Find, Up: Library

Preparing to Use the Termcap Library
====================================

To use the termcap library in a program, you need two kinds of
preparation:

* The compiler needs declarations of the functions and variables in
the library.

On GNU systems, it suffices to include the header file `termcap.h'
in each source file that uses these functions and variables.

On Unix systems, there is often no such header file. Then you must
explictly declare the variables as external. You can do likewise
for the functions, or let them be implicitly declared and cast
their values from type `int' to the appropriate type.

We illustrate the declarations of the individual termcap library
functions with ANSI C prototypes because they show how to pass the
arguments. If you are not using the GNU C compiler, you probably
cannot use function prototypes, so omit the argument types and
names from your declarations.

* The linker needs to search the library. Usually either
`-ltermcap' or `-ltermlib' as an argument when linking will do
this.

File: termcap.info, Node: Find, Next: Interrogate, Prev: Preparation, Up: Library

Finding a Terminal Description: `tgetent'
=========================================

An application program that is going to use termcap must first look
up the description of the terminal type in use. This is done by calling
`tgetent', whose declaration in ANSI Standard C looks like:

int tgetent (char *BUFFER, char *TERMTYPE);

This function finds the description and remembers it internally so that
you can interrogate it about specific terminal capabilities (*note
Interrogate::.).

The argument TERMTYPE is a string which is the name for the type of
terminal to look up. Usually you would obtain this from the environment
variable `TERM' using `getenv ("TERM")'.

If you are using the GNU version of termcap, you can alternatively
ask `tgetent' to allocate enough space. Pass a null pointer for
BUFFER, and `tgetent' itself allocates the storage using `malloc'.
There is no way to get the address that was allocated, and you
shouldn't try to free the storage.

With the Unix version of termcap, you must allocate space for the
description yourself and pass the address of the space as the argument
BUFFER. There is no way you can tell how much space is needed, so the
convention is to allocate a buffer 2048 characters long and assume that
is enough. (Formerly the convention was to allocate 1024 characters and
assume that was enough. But one day, for one kind of terminal, that was
not enough.)

No matter how the space to store the description has been obtained,
termcap records its address internally for use when you later
interrogate the description with `tgetnum', `tgetstr' or `tgetflag'. If
the buffer was allocated by termcap, it will be freed by termcap too if
you call `tgetent' again. If the buffer was provided by you, you must
make sure that its contents remain unchanged for as long as you still
plan to interrogate the description.

The return value of `tgetent' is -1 if there is some difficulty
accessing the data base of terminal types, 0 if the data base is
accessible but the specified type is not defined in it, and some other
value otherwise.

Here is how you might use the function `tgetent':

#ifdef unix
static char term_buffer[2048];
#else
#define term_buffer 0
#endif

init_terminal_data ()
{
char *termtype = getenv ("TERM");
int success;

if (termtype == 0)
fatal ("Specify a terminal type with `setenv TERM <yourtype>'.\n");

success = tgetent (term_buffer, termtype);
if (success < 0)
fatal ("Could not access the termcap data base.\n");
if (success == 0)
fatal ("Terminal type `%s' is not defined.\n", termtype);
}

Here we assume the function `fatal' prints an error message and exits.

If the environment variable `TERMCAP' is defined, its value is used
to override the terminal type data base. The function `tgetent' checks
the value of `TERMCAP' automatically. If the value starts with `/'
then it is taken as a file name to use as the data base file, instead
of `/etc/termcap' which is the standard data base. If the value does
not start with `/' then it is itself used as the terminal description,
provided that the terminal type TERMTYPE is among the types it claims
to apply to. *Note Data Base::, for information on the format of a
terminal description.

File: termcap.info, Node: Interrogate, Next: Initialize, Prev: Find, Up: Library

Interrogating the Terminal Description
======================================

Each piece of information recorded in a terminal description is
called a "capability". Each defined terminal capability has a
two-letter code name and a specific meaning. For example, the number
of columns is named `co'. *Note Capabilities::, for definitions of all
the standard capability names.

Once you have found the proper terminal description with `tgetent'
(*note Find::.), your application program must "interrogate" it for
various terminal capabilities. You must specify the two-letter code of
the capability whose value you seek.

Capability values can be numeric, boolean (capability is either
present or absent) or strings. Any particular capability always has
the same value type; for example, `co' always has a numeric value,
while `am' (automatic wrap at margin) is always a flag, and `cm'
(cursor motion command) always has a string value. The documentation
of each capability says which type of value it has.

There are three functions to use to get the value of a capability,
depending on the type of value the capability has. Here are their
declarations in ANSI C:

int tgetnum (char *NAME);
int tgetflag (char *NAME);
char *tgetstr (char *NAME, char **AREA);

`tgetnum'
Use `tgetnum' to get a capability value that is numeric. The
argument NAME is the two-letter code name of the capability. If
the capability is present, `tgetnum' returns the numeric value
(which is nonnegative). If the capability is not mentioned in the
terminal description, `tgetnum' returns -1.

`tgetflag'
Use `tgetflag' to get a boolean value. If the capability NAME is
present in the terminal description, `tgetflag' returns 1;
otherwise, it returns 0.

`tgetstr'
Use `tgetstr' to get a string value. It returns a pointer to a
string which is the capability value, or a null pointer if the
capability is not present in the terminal description.

There are two ways `tgetstr' can find space to store the string
value:

* You can ask `tgetstr' to allocate the space. Pass a null
pointer for the argument AREA, and `tgetstr' will use
`malloc' to allocate storage big enough for the value.
Termcap will never free this storage or refer to it again; you
should free it when you are finished with it.

This method is more robust, since there is no need to guess
how much space is needed. But it is supported only by the GNU
termcap library.

* You can provide the space. Provide for the argument AREA the
address of a pointer variable of type `char *'. Before
calling `tgetstr', initialize the variable to point at
available space. Then `tgetstr' will store the string value
in that space and will increment the pointer variable to
point after the space that has been used. You can use the
same pointer variable for many calls to `tgetstr'.

There is no way to determine how much space is needed for a
single string, and no way for you to prevent or handle
overflow of the area you have provided. However, you can be
sure that the total size of all the string values you will
obtain from the terminal description is no greater than the
size of the description (unless you get the same capability
twice). You can determine that size with `strlen' on the
buffer you provided to `tgetent'. See below for an example.

Providing the space yourself is the only method supported by
the Unix version of termcap.

Note that you do not have to specify a terminal type or terminal
description for the interrogation functions. They automatically use the
description found by the most recent call to `tgetent'.

Here is an example of interrogating a terminal description for
various capabilities, with conditionals to select between the Unix and
GNU methods of providing buffer space.

char *tgetstr ();

char *cl_string, *cm_string;
int height;
int width;
int auto_wrap;

char PC; /* For tputs. */
char *BC; /* For tgoto. */
char *UP;

interrogate_terminal ()
{
#ifdef UNIX
/* Here we assume that an explicit term_buffer
was provided to tgetent. */
char *buffer
= (char *) malloc (strlen (term_buffer));
#define BUFFADDR &buffer
#else
#define BUFFADDR 0
#endif

char *temp;

/* Extract information we will use. */
cl_string = tgetstr ("cl", BUFFADDR);
cm_string = tgetstr ("cm", BUFFADDR);
auto_wrap = tgetflag ("am");
height = tgetnum ("li");
width = tgetnum ("co");

/* Extract information that termcap functions use. */
temp = tgetstr ("pc", BUFFADDR);
PC = temp ? *temp : 0;
BC = tgetstr ("le", BUFFADDR);
UP = tgetstr ("up", BUFFADDR);
}

*Note Padding::, for information on the variable `PC'. *Note Using
Parameters::, for information on `UP' and `BC'.

File: termcap.info, Node: Initialize, Next: Padding, Prev: Interrogate, Up: Library

Initialization for Use of Termcap
=================================

Before starting to output commands to a terminal using termcap, an
application program should do two things:

* Initialize various global variables which termcap library output
functions refer to. These include `PC' and `ospeed' for padding
(*note Output Padding::.) and `UP' and `BC' for cursor motion
(*note tgoto::.).

* Tell the kernel to turn off alteration and padding of
horizontal-tab characters sent to the terminal.

To turn off output processing in Berkeley Unix you would use `ioctl'
with code `TIOCLSET' to set the bit named `LLITOUT', and clear the bits
`ANYDELAY' using `TIOCSETN'. In POSIX or System V, you must clear the
bit named `OPOST'. Refer to the system documentation for details.

If you do not set the terminal flags properly, some older terminals
will not work. This is because their commands may contain the
characters that normally signify newline, carriage return and
horizontal tab--characters which the kernel thinks it ought to modify
before output.

When you change the kernel's terminal flags, you must arrange to
restore them to their normal state when your program exits. This
implies that the program must catch fatal signals such as `SIGQUIT' and
`SIGINT' and restore the old terminal flags before actually terminating.

Modern terminals' commands do not use these special characters, so
if you do not care about problems with old terminals, you can leave the
kernel's terminal flags unaltered.

File: termcap.info, Node: Padding, Next: Parameters, Prev: Initialize, Up: Library

Padding
=======

"Padding" means outputting null characters following a terminal
display command that takes a long time to execute. The terminal
description says which commands require padding and how much; the
function `tputs', described below, outputs a terminal command while
extracting from it the padding information, and then outputs the
padding that is necessary.

* Menu:

File: termcap.info, Node: Why Pad, Next: Not Enough, Up: Padding

Why Pad, and How
----------------

Most types of terminal have commands that take longer to execute
than they do to send over a high-speed line. For example, clearing the
screen may take 20msec once the entire command is received. During
that time, on a 9600 bps line, the terminal could receive about 20
additional output characters while still busy clearing the screen.
Every terminal has a certain amount of buffering capacity to remember
output characters that cannot be processed yet, but too many slow
commands in a row can cause the buffer to fill up. Then any additional
output that cannot be processed immediately will be lost.

To avoid this problem, we normally follow each display command with
enough useless charaters (usually null characters) to fill up the time
that the display command needs to execute. This does the job if the
terminal throws away null characters without using up space in the
buffer (which most terminals do). If enough padding is used, no output
can ever be lost. The right amount of padding avoids loss of output
without slowing down operation, since the time used to transmit padding
is time that nothing else could be done.

The number of padding characters needed for an operation depends on
the line speed. In fact, it is proportional to the line speed. A 9600
baud line transmits about one character per msec, so the clear screen
command in the example above would need about 20 characters of padding.
At 1200 baud, however, only about 3 characters of padding are needed
to fill up 20msec.

File: termcap.info, Node: Not Enough, Next: Describe Padding, Prev: Why Pad, Up: Padding

When There Is Not Enough Padding
--------------------------------

There are several common manifestations of insufficient padding.

* Emacs displays `I-search: ^Q-' at the bottom of the screen.

This means that the terminal thought its buffer was getting full of
display commands, so it tried to tell the computer to stop sending
any.

* The screen is garbled intermittently, or the details of garbling
vary when you repeat the action. (A garbled screen could be due
to a command which is simply incorrect, or to user option in the
terminal which doesn't match the assumptions of the terminal
description, but this usually leads to reproducible failure.)

This means that the buffer did get full, and some commands were
lost. Many changeable factors can change which ones are lost.

* Screen is garbled at high output speeds but not at low speeds.
Padding problems nearly always go away at low speeds, usually even
at 1200 baud.

This means that a high enough speed permits commands to arrive
faster than they can be executed.

Although any obscure command on an obscure terminal might lack
padding, in practice problems arise most often from the clearing
commands `cl' and `cd' (*note Clearing::.), the scrolling commands `sf'
and `sr' (*note Scrolling::.), and the line insert/delete commands `al'
and `dl' (*note Insdel Line::.).

Occasionally the terminal description fails to define `sf' and some
programs will use `do' instead, so you may get a problem with `do'. If
so, first define `sf' just like `do', then add some padding to `sf'.

The best strategy is to add a lot of padding at first, perhaps 200
msec. This is much more than enough; in fact, it should cause a
visible slowdown. (If you don't see a slowdown, the change has not
taken effect; *note Changing::..) If this makes the problem go away,
you have found the right place to add padding; now reduce the amount
until the problem comes back, then increase it again. If the problem
remains, either it is in some other capability or it is not a matter of
padding at all.

Keep in mind that on many terminals the correct padding for
insert/delete line or for scrolling is cursor-position dependent. If
you get problems from scrolling a large region of the screen but not
from scrolling a small part (just a few lines moving), it may mean that
fixed padding should be replaced with position-dependent padding.

File: termcap.info, Node: Describe Padding, Next: Output Padding, Prev: Not Enough, Up: Padding

Specifying Padding in a Terminal Description
--------------------------------------------

In the terminal description, the amount of padding required by each
display command is recorded as a sequence of digits at the front of the
command. These digits specify the padding time in milliseconds (msec).
They can be followed optionally by a decimal point and one more digit,
which is a number of tenths of msec.

Sometimes the padding needed by a command depends on the cursor
position. For example, the time taken by an "insert line" command is
usually proportional to the number of lines that need to be moved down
or cleared. An asterisk (`*') following the padding time says that the
time should be multiplied by the number of screen lines affected by the
command.

:al=1.3*\E[L:

is used to describe the "insert line" command for a certain terminal.
The padding required is 1.3 msec per line affected. The command itself
is `ESC [ L'.

The padding time specified in this way tells `tputs' how many pad
characters to output. *Note Output Padding::.

Two special capability values affect padding for all commands.
These are the `pc' and `pb'. The variable `pc' specifies the character
to pad with, and `pb' the speed below which no padding is needed. The
defaults for these variables, a null character and 0, are correct for
most terminals. *Note Pad Specs::.

File: termcap.info, Node: Output Padding, Prev: Describe Padding, Up: Padding

Performing Padding with `tputs'
-------------------------------

Use the termcap function `tputs' to output a string containing an
optional padding spec of the form described above (*note Describe
Padding::.). The function `tputs' strips off and decodes the padding
spec, outputs the rest of the string, and then outputs the appropriate
padding. Here is its declaration in ANSI C:

char PC;
short ospeed;

int tputs (char *STRING, int NLINES, int (*OUTFUN) ());

Here STRING is the string (including padding spec) to be output;
NLINES is the number of lines affected by the operation, which is used
to multiply the amount of padding if the padding spec ends with a `*'.
Finally, OUTFUN is a function (such as `fputchar') that is called to
output each character. When actually called, OUTFUN should expect one
argument, a character.

The operation of `tputs' is controlled by two global variables,
`ospeed' and `PC'. The value of `ospeed' is supposed to be the
terminal output speed, encoded as in the `ioctl' system call which gets
the speed information. This is needed to compute the number of padding
characters. The value of `PC' is the character used for padding.

You are responsible for storing suitable values into these variables
before using `tputs'. The value stored into the `PC' variable should be
taken from the `pc' capability in the terminal description (*note Pad
Specs::.). Store zero in `PC' if there is no `pc' capability.

The argument NLINES requires some thought. Normally, it should be
the number of lines whose contents will be cleared or moved by the
command. For cursor motion commands, or commands that do editing
within one line, use the value 1. For most commands that affect
multiple lines, such as `al' (insert a line) and `cd' (clear from the
cursor to the end of the screen), NLINES should be the screen height
minus the current vertical position (origin 0). For multiple insert
and scroll commands such as `AL' (insert multiple lines), that same
value for NLINES is correct; the number of lines being inserted is not
correct.

If a "scroll window" feature is used to reduce the number of lines
affected by a command, the value of NLINES should take this into
account. This is because the delay time required depends on how much
work the terminal has to do, and the scroll window feature reduces the
work. *Note Scrolling::.

Commands such as `ic' and `dc' (insert or delete characters) are
problematical because the padding needed by these commands is
proportional to the number of characters affected, which is the number
of columns from the cursor to the end of the line. It would be nice to
have a way to specify such a dependence, and there is no need for
dependence on vertical position in these commands, so it is an obvious
idea to say that for these commands NLINES should really be the number
of columns affected. However, the definition of termcap clearly says
that NLINES is always the number of lines affected, even in this case,
where it is always 1. It is not easy to change this rule now, because
too many programs and terminal descriptions have been written to follow
it.

Because NLINES is always 1 for the `ic' and `dc' strings, there is
no reason for them to use `*', but some of them do. These should be
corrected by deleting the `*'. If, some day, such entries have
disappeared, it may be possible to change to a more useful convention
for the NLINES argument for these operations without breaking any
programs.

File: termcap.info, Node: Parameters, Prev: Padding, Up: Library

Filling In Parameters
=====================

Some terminal control strings require numeric "parameters". For
example, when you move the cursor, you need to say what horizontal and
vertical positions to move it to. The value of the terminal's `cm'
capability, which says how to move the cursor, cannot simply be a
string of characters; it must say how to express the cursor position
numbers and where to put them within the command.

The specifications of termcap include conventions as to which
string-valued capabilities require parameters, how many parameters, and
what the parameters mean; for example, it defines the `cm' string to
take two parameters, the vertical and horizontal positions, with 0,0
being the upper left corner. These conventions are described where the
individual commands are documented.

Termcap also defines a language used within the capability
definition for specifying how and where to encode the parameters for
output. This language uses character sequences starting with `%'.
(This is the same idea as `printf', but the details are different.)
The language for parameter encoding is described in this section.

A program that is doing display output calls the functions `tparam'
or `tgoto' to encode parameters according to the specifications. These
functions produce a string containing the actual commands to be output
(as well a padding spec which must be processed with `tputs'; *note
Padding::.).

* Menu:

* Encode Parameters:: The language for encoding parameters.
* Using Parameters:: Outputting a string command with parameters.

File: termcap.info, Node: Encode Parameters, Next: Using Parameters, Up: Parameters

Describing the Encoding
-----------------------

A terminal command string that requires parameters contains special
character sequences starting with `%' to say how to encode the
parameters. These sequences control the actions of `tparam' and
`tgoto'.

The parameters values passed to `tparam' or `tgoto' are considered
to form a vector. A pointer into this vector determines the next
parameter to be processed. Some of the `%'-sequences encode one
parameter and advance the pointer to the next parameter. Other
`%'-sequences alter the pointer or alter the parameter values without
generating output.

For example, the `cm' string for a standard ANSI terminal is written
as `\E[%i%d;%dH'. (`\E' stands for ESC.) `cm' by convention always
requires two parameters, the vertical and horizontal goal positions, so
this string specifies the encoding of two parameters. Here `%i'
increments the two values supplied, and each `%d' encodes one of the
values in decimal. If the cursor position values 20,58 are encoded
with this string, the result is `\E[21;59H'.

First, here are the `%'-sequences that generate output. Except for
`%%', each of them encodes one parameter and advances the pointer to
the following parameter.

`%%'
Output a single `%'. This is the only way to represent a literal
`%' in a terminal command with parameters. `%%' does not use up a
parameter.

`%d'
As in `printf', output the next parameter in decimal.

`%2'
Like `%02d' in `printf': output the next parameter in decimal, and
always use at least two digits.

`%3'
Like `%03d' in `printf': output the next parameter in decimal, and
always use at least three digits. Note that `%4' and so on are
*not* defined.

`%.'
Output the next parameter as a single character whose ASCII code is
the parameter value. Like `%c' in `printf'.

`%+CHAR'
Add the next parameter to the character CHAR, and output the
resulting character. For example, `%+ ' represents 0 as a space,
1 as `!', etc.

The following `%'-sequences specify alteration of the parameters
(their values, or their order) rather than encoding a parameter for
output. They generate no output; they are used only for their side
effects on the parameters. Also, they do not advance the "next
parameter" pointer except as explicitly stated. Only `%i', `%r' and
`%>' are defined in standard Unix termcap. The others are GNU
extensions.

`%i'
Increment the next two parameters. This is used for terminals that
expect cursor positions in origin 1. For example, `%i%d,%d' would
output two parameters with `1' for 0, `2' for 1, etc.

`%r'
Interchange the next two parameters. This is used for terminals
whose cursor positioning command expects the horizontal position
first.

`%s'
Skip the next parameter. Do not output anything.

`%b'
Back up one parameter. The last parameter used will become once
again the next parameter to be output, and the next output command
will use it. Using `%b' more than once, you can back up any
number of parameters, and you can refer to each parameter any
number of times.

`%>C1C2'
Conditionally increment the next parameter. Here C1 and C2 are
characters which stand for their ASCII codes as numbers. If the
next parameter is greater than the ASCII code of C1, the ASCII
code of C2 is added to it.

`%a OP TYPE POS'
Perform arithmetic on the next parameter, do not use it up, and do
not output anything. Here OP specifies the arithmetic operation,
while TYPE and POS together specify the other operand.

Spaces are used above to separate the operands for clarity; the
spaces don't appear in the data base, where this sequence is
exactly five characters long.

The character OP says what kind of arithmetic operation to
perform. It can be any of these characters:

`='
assign a value to the next parameter, ignoring its old value.
The new value comes from the other operand.

`+'
add the other operand to the next parameter.

`-'
subtract the other operand from the next parameter.

`*'
multiply the next parameter by the other operand.

`/'
divide the next parameter by the other operand.

The "other operand" may be another parameter's value or a constant;
the character TYPE says which. It can be:

`p'
Use another parameter. The character POS says which
parameter to use. Subtract 64 from its ASCII code to get the
position of the desired parameter relative to this one. Thus,
the character `A' as POS means the parameter after the next
one; the character `?' means the parameter before the next
one.

`c'
Use a constant value. The character POS specifies the value
of the constant. The 0200 bit is cleared out, so that 0200
can be used to represent zero.

The following `%'-sequences are special purpose hacks to compensate
for the weird designs of obscure terminals. They modify the next
parameter or the next two parameters but do not generate output and do
not use up any parameters. `%m' is a GNU extension; the others are
defined in standard Unix termcap.

`%n'
Exclusive-or the next parameter with 0140, and likewise the
parameter after next.

`%m'
Complement all the bits of the next parameter and the parameter
after next.

`%B'
Encode the next parameter in BCD. It alters the value of the
parameter by adding six times the quotient of the parameter by ten.
Here is a C statement that shows how the new value is computed:

PARM = (PARM / 10) * 16 + PARM % 10;

`%D'
Transform the next parameter as needed by Delta Data terminals.
This involves subtracting twice the remainder of the parameter by
16.

PARM -= 2 * (PARM % 16);

File: termcap.info, Node: Using Parameters, Prev: Encode Parameters, Up: Parameters

Sending Display Commands with Parameters
----------------------------------------

The termcap library functions `tparam' and `tgoto' serve as the
analog of `printf' for terminal string parameters. The newer function
`tparam' is a GNU extension, more general but missing from Unix
termcap. The original parameter-encoding function is `tgoto', which is
preferable for cursor motion.

* Menu:

* tparam:: The general case, for GNU termcap only.
* tgoto:: The special case of cursor motion.

File: termcap.info, Node: tparam, Next: tgoto, Up: Using Parameters

`tparam'
........

The function `tparam' can encode display commands with any number of
parameters and allows you to specify the buffer space. It is the
preferred function for encoding parameters for all but the `cm'
capability. Its ANSI C declaration is as follows:

char *tparam (char *CTLSTRING, char *BUFFER, int SIZE, int PARM1,...)

The arguments are a control string CTLSTRING (the value of a terminal
capability, presumably), an output buffer BUFFER and SIZE, and any
number of integer parameters to be encoded. The effect of `tparam' is
to copy the control string into the buffer, encoding parameters
according to the `%' sequences in the control string.

You describe the output buffer by its address, BUFFER, and its size
in bytes, SIZE. If the buffer is not big enough for the data to be
stored in it, `tparam' calls `malloc' to get a larger buffer. In
either case, `tparam' returns the address of the buffer it ultimately
uses. If the value equals BUFFER, your original buffer was used.
Otherwise, a new buffer was allocated, and you must free it after you
are done with printing the results. If you pass zero for SIZE and
BUFFER, `tparam' always allocates the space with `malloc'.

All capabilities that require parameters also have the ability to
specify padding, so you should use `tputs' to output the string
produced by `tparam'. *Note Padding::. Here is an example.

{
char *buf;
char buffer[40];

buf = tparam (command, buffer, 40, parm);
tputs (buf, 1, fputchar);
if (buf != buffer)
free (buf);
}

If a parameter whose value is zero is encoded with `%.'-style
encoding, the result is a null character, which will confuse `tputs'.
This would be a serious problem, but luckily `%.' encoding is used only
by a few old models of terminal, and only for the `cm' capability. To
solve the problem, use `tgoto' rather than `tparam' to encode the `cm'
capability.

File: termcap.info, Node: tgoto, Prev: tparam, Up: Using Parameters

`tgoto'
.......

The special case of cursor motion is handled by `tgoto'. There are
two reasons why you might choose to use `tgoto':

* For Unix compatibility, because Unix termcap does not have
`tparam'.

* For the `cm' capability, since `tgoto' has a special feature to
avoid problems with null characters, tabs and newlines on certain
old terminal types that use `%.' encoding for that capability.

Here is how `tgoto' might be declared in ANSI C:

char *tgoto (char *CSTRING, int HPOS, int VPOS)

There are three arguments, the terminal description's `cm' string and
the two cursor position numbers; `tgoto' computes the parametrized
string in an internal static buffer and returns the address of that
buffer. The next time you use `tgoto' the same buffer will be reused.

Parameters encoded with `%.' encoding can generate null characters,
tabs or newlines. These might cause trouble: the null character because
`tputs' would think that was the end of the string, the tab because the
kernel or other software might expand it into spaces, and the newline
becaue the kernel might add a carriage-return, or padding characters
normally used for a newline. To prevent such problems, `tgoto' is
careful to avoid these characters. Here is how this works: if the
target cursor position value is such as to cause a problem (that is to
say, zero, nine or ten), `tgoto' increments it by one, then compensates
by appending a string to move the cursor back or up one position.

The compensation strings to use for moving back or up are found in
global variables named `BC' and `UP'. These are actual external C
variables with upper case names; they are declared `char *'. It is up
to you to store suitable values in them, normally obtained from the
`le' and `up' terminal capabilities in the terminal description with
`tgetstr'. Alternatively, if these two variables are both zero, the
feature of avoiding nulls, tabs and newlines is turned off.

It is safe to use `tgoto' for commands other than `cm' only if you
have stored zero in `BC' and `UP'.

Note that `tgoto' reverses the order of its operands: the horizontal
position comes before the vertical position in the arguments to
`tgoto', even though the vertical position comes before the horizontal
in the parameters of the `cm' string. If you use `tgoto' with a
command such as `AL' that takes one parameter, you must pass the
parameter to `tgoto' as the "vertical position".

File: termcap.info, Node: Data Base, Next: Capabilities, Prev: Library, Up: Top

The Format of the Data Base
***************************

The termcap data base of terminal descriptions is stored in the file
`/etc/termcap'. It contains terminal descriptions, blank lines, and
comments.

A terminal description starts with one or more names for the
terminal type. The information in the description is a series of
"capability names" and values. The capability names have standard
meanings (*note Capabilities::.) and their values describe the terminal.

* Menu:

File: termcap.info, Node: Format, Next: Capability Format, Up: Data Base

Terminal Description Format
===========================

Aside from comments (lines starting with `#', which are ignored),
each nonblank line in the termcap data base is a terminal description.
A terminal description is nominally a single line, but it can be split
into multiple lines by inserting the two characters `\ newline'. This
sequence is ignored wherever it appears in a description.

The preferred way to split the description is between capabilities:
insert the four characters `: \ newline tab' immediately before any
colon. This allows each sub-line to start with some indentation. This
works because, after the `\ newline' are ignored, the result is `: tab
:'; the first colon ends the preceding capability and the second colon
starts the next capability. If you split with `\ newline' alone, you
may not add any indentation after them.

Here is a real example of a terminal description:

dw|vt52|DEC vt52:\
:cr=^M:do=^J:nl=^J:bl=^G:\
:le=^H:bs:cd=\EJ:ce=\EK:cl=\EH\EJ:\
:cm=\EY%+ %+ :co#80:li#24:\
:nd=\EC:ta=^I:pt:sr=\EI:up=\EA:\
:ku=\EA:kd=\EB:kr=\EC:kl=\ED:kb=^H:

Each terminal description begins with several names for the terminal
type. The names are separated by `|' characters, and a colon ends the
last name. The first name should be two characters long; it exists
only for the sake of very old Unix systems and is never used in modern
systems. The last name should be a fully verbose name such as "DEC
vt52" or "Ann Arbor Ambassador with 48 lines". The other names should
include whatever the user ought to be able to specify to get this
terminal type, such as `vt52' or `aaa-48'. *Note Naming::, for
information on how to choose terminal type names.

After the terminal type names come the terminal capabilities,
separated by colons and with a colon after the last one. Each
capability has a two-letter name, such as `cm' for "cursor motion
string" or `li' for "number of display lines".

File: termcap.info, Node: Capability Format, Next: Naming, Prev: Format, Up: Data Base

Writing the Capabilities
========================

There are three kinds of capabilities: flags, numbers, and strings.
Each kind has its own way of being written in the description. Each
defined capability has by convention a particular kind of value; for
example, `li' always has a numeric value and `cm' always a string value.

A flag capability is thought of as having a boolean value: the value
is true if the capability is present, false if not. When the
capability is present, just write its name between two colons.

A numeric capability has a value which is a nonnegative number.
Write the capability name, a `#', and the number, between two colons.
For example, `...:li#48:...' is how you specify the `li' capability for
48 lines.

A string-valued capability has a value which is a sequence of
characters. Usually these are the characters used to perform some
display operation. Write the capability name, a `=', and the
characters of the value, between two colons. For example,
`...:cm=\E[%i%d;%dH:...' is how the cursor motion command for a
standard ANSI terminal would be specified.

Special characters in the string value can be expressed using
`\'-escape sequences as in C; in addition, `\E' stands for ESC. `^' is
also a kind of escape character; `^' followed by CHAR stands for the
control-equivalent of CHAR. Thus, `^a' stands for the character
control-a, just like `\001'. `\' and `^' themselves can be represented
as `\\' and `\^'.

To include a colon in the string, you must write `\072'. You might
ask, "Why can't `\:' be used to represent a colon?" The reason is that
the interrogation functions do not count slashes while looking for a
capability. Even if `:ce=ab\:cd:' were interpreted as giving the `ce'
capability the value `ab:cd', it would also appear to define `cd' as a
flag.

The string value will often contain digits at the front to specify
padding (*note Padding::.) and/or `%'-sequences within to specify how
to encode parameters (*note Parameters::.). Although these things are
not to be output literally to the terminal, they are considered part of
the value of the capability. They are special only when the string
value is processed by `tputs', `tparam' or `tgoto'. By contrast, `\'
and `^' are considered part of the syntax for specifying the characters
in the string.

Let's look at the VT52 example again:

dw|vt52|DEC vt52:\
:cr=^M:do=^J:nl=^J:bl=^G:\
:le=^H:bs:cd=\EJ:ce=\EK:cl=\EH\EJ:\
:cm=\EY%+ %+ :co#80:li#24:\
:nd=\EC:ta=^I:pt:sr=\EI:up=\EA:\
:ku=\EA:kd=\EB:kr=\EC:kl=\ED:kb=^H:

Here we see the numeric-valued capabilities `co' and `li', the flags
`bs' and `pt', and many string-valued capabilities. Most of the
strings start with ESC represented as `\E'. The rest contain control
characters represented using `^'. The meanings of the individual
capabilities are defined elsewhere (*note Capabilities::.).