Manual: captoinfo

captoinfo(1)						User commands						captoinfo(1)

NAME
       captoinfo - convert a termcap description into a terminfo description

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

       captoinfo -V

DESCRIPTION
       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
       terminfo “use” 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(1), 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  diag‐
       nostic to the standard error stream for each, inviting the user to check that it has not mistakenly translated an un‐
       known 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	dis‐
       cards 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
       /etc/termcap
	      default termcap terminal capability database

EXTENSIONS
       This command is an SVr4 curses and ncurses extension.

PORTABILITY
       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 argu‐
       ment n; repeat -v n times instead.

       NetBSD does not provide this application.

AUTHORS
       Eric S. Raymond  and
       Thomas E. Dickey 

SEE ALSO
       infocmp(1), tic(1), ncurses(3NCURSES), terminfo(5)

ncurses 6.6						 2025-11-11						captoinfo(1)