http://invisible-island.net/ncurses/tctest/


tctest(1)

NAME

       tctest - termcap library checker

SYNOPSIS

       tctest [options] [file-specifications]

DESCRIPTION

       tctest  exercises  the  termcap  library (or emulation of termcap) with
       which it is linked.  It provides several command-line  options,  making
       it  simple  to construct test-cases to compare implementations of term-
       cap.

OPTIONS

       After processing options, tctest uses any  command-line  parameters  as
       the  names  of  terminal  descriptions  to process.  If no command-line
       parameters are given, tctest tries the TERM environment  variable.   If
       that is not set, the program uses the dumb terminal description.

       The  termcap library function tgetent locates the termcap file, looking
       at the TERMCAP environment variable (or /etc/termcap).  tctest  manipu-
       lates this environment variable, allowing one to use alternate terminal
       databases.

       Some of the options provide only summary  behavior.   The  most  useful
       output  from tctest is in termcap format, with one capability per line.
       It is noted that the extra whitespace would be poorly handled  by  some
       termcap  implementations,  counting  toward  the  1023 byte limit on an
       entry's size.  The reason for listing it in this way is to provide easy
       comparison.

       These are the options:

       -1     when processing a termcap file, e.g., with -a, call tgetent only
              once per entry using the primary name.   Use  this  for  getting
              per-entry statistics versus the per-call statistics.

       -a     show capabilities for all names in termcap file.  This overrides
              the -b option.

       -b     use brute-force to find all capabilities, e.g.,  for  the  names
              given on the command-line.

       -c     tctest  uses  the  names  from a built-in table of termcap names
              chosen to correspond to terminfo capability names.  This is  the
              default; the -c option is provided to cancel -b.

       -e     use  $TERMCAP variable if it exists.  If this option is not set,
              tctest unsets the TERMCAP environment variable.

       -f NAME
              use this termcap file.   tctest  sets  the  TERMCAP  environment
              variable to the file's absolute path.

       -g     writes  two  files (by-name.dat and by-size.dat) with statistics
              gathered while processing other options, e.g., -a or -s):

              by-name.dat columns

                     1  the 2-character capability name in double-quotes

                     2  total number of times the capability was retrieved

                     3  number denoting if the  value  is  "standard"  (1)  or
                        "obsolete" (3).

              by-size.dat columns

                     1  size of the buffer returned by tgetent

                     2  total number of tgetent calls returning this size

                     3  total  wasted space (tabs, newlines) for tgetent calls
                        returning this size

       -l     list names and aliases in termcap file.

       -n     do not query for the capability names.  This option is  used  to
              allow timing "only" tgetent.

       -o NAME
              redirect  output  (the  reformatted  input)  to  this  file.  By
              default that goes to the standard output.   If  this  option  is
              used,  verbose  and  summary reports are written to the standard
              output instead of the standard error, to allow  separating  them
              from error messages that may be written by the termcap library.

       -r COUNT
              repeat  the processing of the terminal database this many times.
              As in -n, this is used to help measure timing for tgetent.

       -s     show a summary report.

       -v     verbose (prints names to stderr to track tgetent  calls).   This
              is  useful in conjunction with -a, e.g., to help pinpoint places
              where tgetent reports  that  a  terminal  entry  is  too  large.
              Repeat the option to get more detail.

       -w     check  the result from tgetent and tgetstr, printing warnings to
              the standard error.

       -V     print the program version and exit

SEE ALSO

       tgetent(3) documentation for ncurses highlights the differences.   This
       is  a  starting  point; although the original BSD source code is recom-
       mended reading as well.

       ncurses(3) is a terminfo-based library, which provides a termcap inter-
       face.   Normally it ignores the TERMCAP variable, but it can be config-
       ured to provide a more accurate emulation of the termcap library, e.g.,
       loading the terminal entries base on TERMCAP.

AUTHOR

       Thomas Dickey <dickey@invisible-island.net>.

                                                                     TCTEST(1)