charmap(4)

NAME

charmap — symbolic translation file for localedef scripts

SYNOPSIS

localedef -f charmap locale_name

DESCRIPTION

Invoking the localedef command with the -f option causes symbolic names in the locale description file to be translated into the encodings given in the charmap file (see localedef(1M)). As a recommendation, a locale description file should be written completely with symbolic names.

The charmap file has two sections: a declarations section and a character definition section.

Declarations Section

Declarations can precede the character definitions.

Each consists of the symbol (including the surrounding angle brackets), followed by one or more blanks (or tabs or space characters), followed by the value of the symbol.

Certain declarations are required for multibyte character codesets. For single-byte codesets, all are optional.

Following is a list of possible declarations:

<code_set_name> value

Used to declare the name of the coded character set for which the charmap file is defined. This keyword is required for multibyte character codesets. For HP15 encoding scheme, HP15 needs to be part of the name. For EUC encoding scheme, EUC needs to be part of the name.

<cswidth> value

Used to declare the cswidth parameter of the coded character set for which the charmap file is defined (see euset(1)).

<mb_cur_max> value

Used to declare the maximum number of bytes in a multibyte character. Defaults to 1 if not given. For multibyte character codesets, this keyword must be specified.

<mb_cur_min> value

Used to declare the minimum number of bytes in a character for the encoded character set. The value must be less than or equal to <mb_cur_max>. If not given, the default is equal to <mb_cur_max>.

<escape_char> value

Used to declare the escape character, which is used to escape characters that otherwise would have special meaning. If not given, the default is backslash (\).

<comment_char> value

Used to declare the comment character, which is used to begin comments and should be placed in column one of the charmap file. If not given, the default is the # character.

Character Definition Section

The character-set mapping definitions immediately follow an identifier line containing the string CHARMAP and precede a trailer line consisting of the string END CHARMAP. (Empty lines and lines beginning with the comment character are ignored.)

The character definitions are of two forms.

The first form defines a single character and its encoding:

<symbolic_name> encoding

A symbolic_name is one or more visible characters from the portable character set as specified by XPG, enclosed in angle brackets. Metacharacters such as angle brackets, escape characters, or comment characters must be escaped if they are used in the name. Two or more symbolic names can be given for the same encoding.

The encoding is a character constant in one of three forms:

decimal: An escape character followed by the letter d, followed by one to three decimal digits.
octal: An escape character followed by one to three octal digits.
hexadecimal: An escape character followed by an x, followed by two hexadecimal digits.

Multibyte characters are represented by the concatenation of character constants. All constants used in the encoding of a multibyte character must be of the same form.

The second form defines a range of characters consisting of all characters from the first symbolic name to the second, inclusive:

<symbolic_name> ... <symbolic_name> encoding

The symbolic name must consist of one or more nonnumeric characters followed by an integer formed of one or more decimal digits. The integer part of the second symbolic name must be larger than that of the first. The range is then interpreted as a list of symbolic names consisting of the same character portion and successive integer values from the first through the last. These names are assigned successive encodings starting with the one given.

For example, the character definition line

<C4>...<C6>   \d129 

is equivalent to:

<C4>        \d129 
<C5>        \d130 
<C6>        \d131 

EXAMPLES

For examples, see any of the files under /usr/lib/nls/loc/charmaps directory.

STANDARDS COMPLIANCE

localedef POSIX.2, XPG4.

charmap(4)

Technical documentation

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