CHARMAP(5) Linux User Manual CHARMAP(5)

NAME charmap - character symbols to define character encodings

DESCRIPTION A character set description (charmap) defines a character set of avail- able characters and their encodings. All supported character sets should have the portable character set as a proper subset.

Syntax The charmap file starts with a header, that may consist of the follow- ing keywords:

<codeset> is followed by the name of the codeset.

<mb_cur_max> is followed by the max number of bytes for a multibyte-charac- ter. Multibyte characters are currently not supported. The default value is 1.

<mb_cur_min> is followed by the min number of bytes for a character. This value must be less or equal than mb_cur_max. If not specified, it defaults to mb_cur_max.

<escape_char> is followed by a character that should be used as the escape- character for the rest of the file to mark characters that should be interpreted in a special way. It defaults to the backslash ( ).

<comment_char> is followed by a character that will be used as the comment- character for the rest of the file. It defaults to the number sign ( # ).

The charmap-definition itself starts with the keyword CHARMAP in column 1.

The following lines may have one of the two following forms to define the character-encodings:

<symbolic-name> <encoding> <comments> This form defines exactly one character and its encoding.

<symbolic-name>...<symbolic-name> <encoding> <comments> This form defines a couple of characters. This is only useful for multibyte-characters, which are currently not implemented.

The last line in a charmap-definition file must contain END CHARMAP.

Symbolic Names A symbolic name for a character contains only characters of the portable character set. The name itself is enclosed between angle brackets. Characters following an <escape_char> are interpreted as itself; for example, the sequence >> represents the symbolic name > enclosed in angle brackets.

Character Encoding The encoding may be in each of the following three forms:

<escape_char>d<number> with a decimal number

<escape_char>x<number> with a hexadecimal number

<escape_char><number> with an octal number.

FILES /usr/share/i18n/charmaps/*

CONFORMING TO POSIX.2.

SEE ALSO locale(1), localedef(1), localeconv(3), setlocale(3), locale(5)

COLOPHON This page is part of release 3.22 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

1994-11-28 CHARMAP(5)