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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | FILES | EXTENSIONS | PORTABILITY | HISTORY | BUGS | AUTHORS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
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infocmp(1M) User commands infocmp(1M)
infocmp - compare or print out terminfo descriptions
infocmp [-1cCdDeEFgGiIKlLnpqrtTuUVWx] [-A directory]
[-B directory] [-Q encoding] [-R subset] [-s key]
[-v level] [-w width] [terminal-type ... ]
infocmp reports a human-readable terminal type description from a
compiled entry in the terminfo database in a variety of selectable
formats, compares such entries to each other, and rewrites an
entry to replace “use” expressions with the content of other
entries by reference. A terminfo entry comprises a list of one or
more terminal type identifiers, a human-readable description of
the terminal type, and a list of terminal capabilities that
characterize its programming interface. In all cases, the program
reports Boolean-valued capabilities first, followed by numeric
ones, and then string-valued capabilities.
Default Options
If no options are specified and zero or one terminal-types is
specified, infocmp assumes the -I option. If more than one is
specified, the program assumes the -d option.
Source Listing Options [-I] [-L] [-C] [-r]
The -I, -L, and -C options will produce a source listing for each
terminal named.
-I use terminfo capability codes
-L use “long” capability names
-C use termcap capability codes
-r with -C, include nonstandard capabilities
-K with -C, improve BSD compatibility
If no terminal-types 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.
For best results when converting to termcap format, you should use
both -C and -r. Normally a termcap description is limited to 1023
bytes. infocmp 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:
[1mterminfo[24m termcap [22mTerminal Types
────────────────────────────────────────────────────
%p1%c %. ansi-m
%p1%d %d ansi, vt100
%p1%' '%+%c %+x vt52
%i %iq ansi, vt100
%p1%?%'x'%>%t%p1%'y'%+%; %>xy annarbor4080
%p2...%p1 %r hpgeneric
Entry Comparison Options [-d] [-c] [-n]
Given -c, -d, or -n, infocmp compares the terminfo description of
the first specified terminal-type with those of each of the
subsequent operands. If fewer terminal-types than required are
specified, infocmp uses the environment variable TERM in their
place.
If a capability is defined for only one terminal type, the value
reported depends on the capability's type:
• F for missing Boolean variables
• NULL for missing integer or string variables
The -c and -d options report string capability values between “'”
characters. Use the -q option to distinguish absent and canceled
capabilities; see terminfo(5).
The comparison option selects the form of report.
-d lists each capability that differs between two entries. Each
capability name is followed by “:” and comma-separated
capability values, then a period.
-c lists each capability that two entries have in common.
infocmp ignores capabilities missing from either entry. Each
capability name is followed by “=”, a space, and the
capability value, then a period.
If the -u option is further specified, infocmp rewrites the
description of the first type employing “use=” syntax to use
the second as a building block.
-n lists capabilities that are in none of the given entries.
Each capability name is preceded by “!” and followed by a
period.
Normally only conventional capabilities are shown. Use the
-x option to add BSD-compatibility capabilities (names
prefixed with “OT”).
Use= Option [-u]
The -u option produces a terminfo source description of the first
terminal terminal-type which is relative to the sum of the
descriptions given by the entries for the other terminal-types.
It does this by analyzing the differences between the first
terminal-types and the other terminal-types 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 be printed with an at-sign (@) if it no longer
exists in the first terminal-type, but one of the other terminal-
type entries contains a value for it. A capability's value will
be printed if the value in the first terminal-type is not found in
any of the other terminal-type entries, or if the first of the
other terminal-type entries that has this capability gives a
different value for the capability than that in the first
terminal-type.
The order of the other terminal-type entries is significant.
Since the terminfo compiler tic 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. infocmp
will flag any such inconsistencies between the other terminal-type
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
terminal-type use= fields that were not needed.
Changing Databases [-A directory] [-B directory]
Like other ncurses utilities, infocmp 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), as well as the
Fetching Compiled Descriptions section in terminfo(5).
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 terminal-type
• The -B option sets the location for the other terminal-types.
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.
Other Options
-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 infocmp to retain commented-out capabilities rather
than discarding them. Capabilities are commented by
prefixing them with a period.
-D tells infocmp 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:
infocmp -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 canceled
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.
• If you select any other value for -R, it is the same as
no subset, i.e., all capabilities are used.
A few options override the subset selected with -R, if they
are processed later in the command parameters:
-C sets the “BSD” subset as a side effect.
-I sets the subset to all capabilities.
-r sets the subset to all capabilities.
-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 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
contents 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.
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 tic.
terminfo
compiled terminal description database
The -0, -1, -a, -e, -E, -f, -F, -g, -G, -i, -l, -p, -q, -Q, -R,
-t, -T, and -V options are ncurses extensions.
X/Open Curses Issue 7 (2009) specifies infocmp. It does not
mention options for producing descriptions in termcap format.
SVr4 infocmp does not distinguish between absent and canceled
capabilities. It furthermore reports missing integer capabilities
as -1 (its internal representation). ncurses shows these as
“NULL” for consistency with missing string capabilities.
The -r option of ncurses infocmp uses SVr4's notion of “termcap”
capabilities. BSD curses had a more restricted set. To see only
those present in 4.4BSD, use “-r -RBSD”.
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 infocmp 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.
The -F option of infocmp(1M) should be a toe(1M) mode.
Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com> and
Thomas E. Dickey <dickey@invisible-island.net>
captoinfo(1M), infotocap(1M), tic(1M), toe(1M), curses(3X),
terminfo(5), user_caps(5)
https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest.html
This page is part of the ncurses (new curses) project.
Information about the project can be found at
⟨https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.html⟩. If you have a
bug report for this manual page, send it to bug-ncurses@gnu.org.
This page was obtained from the tarball ncurses-6.6.tar.gz fetched
from ⟨https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/⟩ on 2026-01-16. If you
discover any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page,
or you believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the
page, or you have corrections or improvements to the information
in this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page),
send a mail to man-pages@man7.org
ncurses @NCURSES_MAJOR@.@NCU... 2025-11-11 infocmp(1M)
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HTML rendering created 2026-01-16 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface. For details of in-depth Linux/UNIX system programming training courses that I teach, look here. Hosting by jambit GmbH. |
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