captoinfo(1m) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | FILES | EXTENSIONS | PORTABILITY | AUTHORS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

captoinfo(1M)                 User commands                 captoinfo(1M)

NAME         top

       captoinfo - convert a termcap description into a terminfo
       description

SYNOPSIS         top

       captoinfo [tic-option] [file ...]

       captoinfo -V

DESCRIPTION         top

       captoinfo translates terminal descriptions.  It looks in each
       given text file for termcap entries and, for each one found,
       writes an equivalent terminfo description to the standard output
       stream.  termcap tc capabilities translate to terminfouse”
       capabilities.

       If no files are specified, captoinfo interprets the content of the
       environment variable TERMCAP as a file name, and extracts only the
       entry for the terminal type named in the environment variable TERM
       from it.  If the environment variable TERMCAP is not set,
       captoinfo reads /etc/termcap.

       This utility is implemented as a link to tic(1M), with the
       latter's -I option implied.  You can use other tic options such as
       -1, -f, -v, -w, and -x.  The -V option reports the version of
       ncurses associated with this program and exits with a successful
       status.

   Translations from Nonstandard Capabilities
       captoinfo translates some obsolete, nonstandard capabilities into
       standard terminfo capabilities.  It issues a diagnostic to the
       standard error stream for each, inviting the user to check that it
       has not mistakenly translated an unknown or mistyped capability
       name.

               termcap Code
            Obsolete   Standard    Origin      terminfo capability
            ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
               BO         mr        AT&T      enter_reverse_mode
               CI         vi        AT&T      cursor_invisible
               CV         ve        AT&T      cursor_normal
               DS         mh        AT&T      enter_dim_mode
               EE         me        AT&T      exit_attribute_mode
               FE         LF        AT&T      label_on
               FL         LO        AT&T      label_off
               XS         mk        AT&T      enter_secure_mode
               EN         @7        XENIX     key_end
               GE         ae        XENIX     exit_alt_charset_mode
               GS         as        XENIX     enter_alt_charset_mode
               HM         kh        XENIX     key_home
               LD         kL        XENIX     key_dl
               PD         kN        XENIX     key_npage
               PN         po        XENIX     prtr_off
               PS         pf        XENIX     prtr_on
               PU         kP        XENIX     key_ppage
               RT         @8        XENIX     kent
               UP         ku        XENIX     kcuu1
               KA         k;      Tektronix   key_f10
               KB         F1      Tektronix   key_f11
               KC         F2      Tektronix   key_f12
               KD         F3      Tektronix   key_f13
               KE         F4      Tektronix   key_f14
               KF         F5      Tektronix   key_f15
               BC         Sb      Tektronix   set_background
               FC         Sf      Tektronix   set_foreground
               HS         mh        IRIX      enter_dim_mode

       XENIX termcap had a set of extension capabilities, corresponding
       to box drawing characters of CCSID (“code page”) 437, as follows.

                    termcap Code            Graphic
                    ─────────────────────────────────────────
                         G2        upper left corner
                         G3        lower left corner
                         G1        upper right corner
                         G4        lower right corner
                         GR        tee pointing right
                         GL        tee pointing left
                         GU        tee pointing up
                         GD        tee pointing down
                         GH        horizontal line
                         GV        vertical line
                         GC        intersection
                         G6        double upper left corner
                         G7        double lower left corner
                         G5        double upper right corner
                         G8        double lower right corner
                         Gr        double tee pointing right
                         Gr        double tee pointing left
                         Gu        double tee pointing up
                         Gd        double tee pointing down
                         Gh        double horizontal line
                         Gv        double vertical line
                         Gc        double intersection
                         GG        ACS magic cookie count

       captoinfo composes single-line box-drawing capabilities into a
       terminfo acs_chars (acsc) string capability, and discards GG and
       double-line capabilities with a warning diagnostic.

       AIX has a terminfo facility descended from SVr2 terminfo, but
       which is incompatible with the SVr4 format.  captoinfo translates
       the following AIX extensions.

                                  IBM    X/Open
                                 ───────────────
                                 ksel    kslt
                                 kbtab   kcbt
                                 font0   s0ds
                                 font1   s1ds
                                 font2   s2ds
                                 font3   s3ds

       It furthermore translates the AIX box1 capability to an acs_chars
       (acsc) string capability.

       The HP-UX terminfo library supports two nonstandard terminfo
       capabilities: memory_lock (meml) and memory_unlock (memu).
       captoinfo discards these with a warning message.

FILES         top

       /etc/termcap
              default termcap terminal capability database

EXTENSIONS         top

       This command is an SVr4 curses and ncurses extension.

PORTABILITY         top

       X/Open Curses Issue 7 (2009) does not specify this command.

       SVr4 systems provide captoinfo as a separate application from tic.
       Its -v option does not accept a trace level argument n; repeat -v
       n times instead.

       NetBSD does not provide this application.

AUTHORS         top

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

SEE ALSO         top

       infocmp(1M), tic(1M), curses(3X), terminfo(5)

COLOPHON         top

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ncurses @NCURSES_MAJOR@.@NCU... 2025-11-11                  captoinfo(1M)