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NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | FILES | NOTES | EXTENSIONS | PORTABILITY | HISTORY | AUTHORS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON |
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tic(1M) User commands tic(1M)
tic - compile terminal descriptions for terminfo or termcap
tic [-01acCDfgGIKLNqrstTUVWx] [-e terminal-type-list] [-o dir]
[-Q[n]] [-R subset] [-v[n]] [-w[n]] file
tic translates a terminfo file from source format into the
compiled format used by the ncurses(3X) library.
As described in term(5), the database may be either a directory
tree (one file per terminal entry) or a hashed database (one
record per entry). The tic command writes only one type of entry,
depending on how it was built.
• For directory trees, the top-level directory, such as
/usr/share/terminfo, specifies the location of the database.
• 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), tic will create the
container if it does not exist. For a directory, this would be
the “terminfo” leaf, versus a terminfo.db file.
The results are normally placed in the system terminfo database
terminfo. The compiled terminal description can be placed in a
different terminfo database. There are two ways to achieve this:
• First, you may override the system default either by using the
-o option, or by setting the variable TERMINFO in the process
environment to a valid database location.
• Secondly, if tic cannot write in terminfo or the location
specified using your TERMINFO variable, it looks for the
directory $HOME/.terminfo (or hashed database
$HOME/.terminfo.db); if that location exists, the entry is
placed there.
Libraries that read terminfo entries are expected to check in
succession
• a location specified by the TERMINFO environment variable,
• $HOME/.terminfo,
• directories listed in the TERMINFO_DIRS environment variable,
• a compiled-in list of directories (@TERMINFO_DIRS@), and
• the system terminfo database (terminfo).
Section “Fetching Compiled Descriptions” in terminfo(5) goes into
further detail.
Aliases
tic is the same program as infotocap and captoinfo; usually those
are linked to, or copied from, this program.
• When invoked as infotocap, tic sets the -I option.
• When invoked as captoinfo, tic sets the -C option.
-0 restricts the output to a single line.
-1 restricts the output to a single column.
-a tells tic to retain commented-out capabilities rather than
discarding them. Capabilities are commented by prefixing
them with a period. -a implies -x, because tic treats the
commented-out entries as user-defined names. If the source
is in termcap format, tic accepts the 2-character names
required by version 6. Otherwise these are ignored.
-C Force source translation to termcap format. Note: this
option differs from the -C option of infocmp(1M) in that it
does not merely translate capability names, but also
translates terminfo string capability values to termcap
format. tic leaves capabilities that are not translatable
in the entry under their terminfo names, but commented out
with two preceding dots. The actual format used
incorporates some improvements for escaped characters from
terminfo format. For a stricter BSD-compatible
translation, specify -K as well.
If -C is combined with -c, tic makes additional checks,
reporting cases where terminfo capability values do not
have an exact equivalent in termcap syntax. For example:
• sgr usually does not convert, because termcap is unable
to work with more than two parameters, and because
termcap 's language for encoding parameterized
capabilities lacks many of terminfo's arithmetic and
logical operators.
-c tells tic to perform only validation of file , including
syntax problems and invalid “use” references; no output is
produced. If you specify -C (-I) with this option, tic
warns about entries that, after “use” resolution, exceed
1023 (4096) bytes. Due to a fixed buffer length in older
termcap libraries, as well as buggy checking of the buffer
length (and a documented limit in terminfo), these entries
may cause core dumps with other implementations.
tic checks string capabilities to ensure that those with
parameters are valid expressions. It validates only
standard string capabilities, ignoring those defined with
the -x option.
-D tells tic 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
tic 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.
-e list
Limit writes and translations to the comma-separated list
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 tic was compiled, this option may require
-I or -C.)
-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 Force source translation to terminfo format.
-K Suppress some longstanding ncurses extensions to termcap
format, e.g., "\s" for space.
-L Force source translation to terminfo format using the long
C variable names listed in <term.h>
-N Disable smart defaults. Normally, when translating from
termcap to terminfo, the compiler makes a number of
assumptions about the defaults of string capabilities
reset1_string, carriage_return, cursor_left, cursor_down,
scroll_forward, tab, newline, key_backspace, key_left, and
key_down, then attempts to use obsolete termcap
capabilities to deduce correct values. It also normally
suppresses output of obsolete termcap capabilities such as
bs. This option forces a more literal translation that
also preserves the obsolete capabilities.
-odir Write compiled entries to given database location.
Overrides the TERMINFO environment variable.
-Qn 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
-q Suppress comments and blank lines when showing translated
source.
-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 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 terminfo(5) for details.
-r 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.
-s Summarize the compile by showing the database location into
which entries are written, and the number of entries which
are compiled.
-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 tic 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.
-V reports the version of ncurses which was used in this
program, and exits.
-vn specifies that (verbose) output be written to standard
error trace information showing tic's progress.
The optional parameter n is a number from 1 to 9,
inclusive, indicating the desired level of detail of
information.
• If ncurses is built without tracing support, the
optional parameter is ignored.
• If n is omitted, the default level is 1.
• If n 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
-W By itself, the -w option will not force long strings to be
wrapped. Use the -W option to do this.
If you specify both -f and -W options, the latter is
ignored when -f has already split the line.
-wn specifies the width of the output. The parameter is
optional. If it is omitted, it defaults to 60.
-x Treat unknown capabilities as user-defined (see
user_caps(5)). That is, if you supply a capability name
which tic 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.
Parameters
file contains one or more terminfo terminal descriptions in
source format; see terminfo(5). Each description in the
file describes the capabilities of a particular terminal
type.
If file is “-”, the data are read from the standard input
stream. The file parameter may also be the path of a
character device.
Processing
terminfo(5) documents all but one of the capabilities recognized
by tic. The exception is the use capability, which enables a
terminal type description to incorporate others by reference.
tic serially reads and compiles terminal type descriptions; at any
given time, the program compiles at most one current entry. When
tic encounters a use=entry-name field in the current entry, it
reads the compiled description of entry-name from terminfo to
complete the current entry. If tic has already compiled a
description of entry-name preceding the current entry in file, tic
uses it preferentially. tic duplicates the capabilities in entry-
name for the current entry, excepting those that the current entry
explicitly defines. The foregoing has implications for capability
cancellation. When entry-1 declares “use=entry-2“, any canceled
capabilities in entry-2 must also appear in entry-1 prior to
“use=entry-2“ for these capabilities to be canceled in entry-1.
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.
terminfo
compiled terminal description database
There is some evidence that historic tic implementations treated
description fields with no whitespace in them as additional
aliases or short names. This tic does not do that, but it does
warn when description fields may be treated that way and check
them for dangerous characters.
Unlike the SVr4 tic command, ncurses tic can compile termcap
sources. In fact, entries in terminfo and termcap syntax can be
mixed in a single source file. See terminfo(5) for the list of
termcap capability names ncurses tic treats as equivalent to term‐
info names.
The SVr4 man pages are not clear on the resolution rules for “use”
capabilities. ncurses's tic finds “use” targets anywhere in the
source file, or anywhere in the file tree rooted at the location
in the TERMINFO environment variable (if TERMINFO is defined), or
in the user's $HOME/.terminfo database (if it exists), or
(finally) anywhere in the system's collection of compiled entries.
The error messages from ncurses tic have the same format as GNU C
error messages, and can be parsed by GNU Emacs's “compile”
facility.
Aside from -c and -v, options are not portable.
• Most of ncurses tic's options are not supported by SVr4 tic.
-0 -1 -C -G -I -N -R -T -V -a -e -f -g -o -r -s -t -x
• NetBSD tic supports a few of the ncurses tic options.
-a -o -x
• NetBSD tic also adds -S, a feature which does the same thing
as ncurses infocmp's -e and -E options.
SVr4 tic's -c mode does not report bad “use” links.
SVr4 does not compile entries to or read entries from your
$HOME/.terminfo database unless the TERMINFO environment variable
is explicitly set to it.
X/Open Curses Issue 7 (2009) provides a brief description of tic.
It lists one option: -c. The omission of -v is unexpected. The
change history states that the description is derived from Tru64.
According to its manual pages, that system also supported the -v
option.
Shortly after Issue 7 was released, Tru64 was discontinued. As of
2019, the surviving implementations of tic are SVr4 (AIX, HP-UX
and Solaris), ncurses and NetBSD curses. The SVr4 tic programs
all support the -v option. The NetBSD tic program follows
X/Open's documentation, omitting the -v option.
The X/Open rationale states that some implementations of tic read
terminal descriptions from the standard input if the file
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.
System V Release 2 provided a tic utility. It accepted a single
option: -v (optionally followed by a number). According to Ross
Ridge's comment in mytinfo, this version of tic was unable to
represent canceled capabilities.
System V Release 3 provided a different tic utility, written by
Pavel Curtis, (originally named “compile” in pcurses). This added
an option -c 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 pcurses.
While the program itself was changed little as development
continued with System V Release 4, the table of capabilities grew
from 180 (pcurses) to 464 (Solaris).
In early development of ncurses (1993), Zeyd Ben-Halim used the
table from mytinfo to extend the pcurses 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 memory_lock_above and
memory_unlock (see user_caps(5)).
Eric Raymond incorporated parts of mytinfo into ncurses 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 -x option to support user-defined
capabilities.
In 2010, Roy Marples provided a tic program and terminfo library
for NetBSD. That implementation adapts several features from
ncurses, including tic's -x option.
The -c option tells tic to check for problems in the terminfo
source file. Continued development provides additional checks:
• pcurses had 8 warnings.
• ncurses in 1996 had 16 warnings.
• Solaris (SVr4) curses has 28 warnings.
• NetBSD tic in 2019 has 19 warnings.
• ncurses in 2019 has 96 warnings.
The checking done in ncurses's tic 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 ncurses's
terminal database; 128 of those are user-defined.
Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com> and
Thomas E. Dickey <dickey@invisible-island.net>
captoinfo(1M), infocmp(1M), infotocap(1M), toe(1M), curses(3X),
term(5), terminfo(5), user_caps(5)
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
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send a mail to man-pages@man7.org
ncurses @NCURSES_MAJOR@.@NCU... 2025-11-11 tic(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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