.\" Hey emacs, this is -*- nroff -*-
.\"
.\" This file is part of locale(1) which displays the settings of the 
.\" current locale.
.\" Copyright (C) 1994  Jochen Hein (Hein@Student.TU-Clausthal.de)
.\"
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.\"
.TH CHARMAP 5 1994-11-28 "National Language Support" "Linux User Manual"
.SH NAME
charmap \- character symbols to define character encodings
.SH DESCRIPTION
A character set description (charmap) defines a character set of
available characters and their encodings. All supported character
sets should have the 
.B portable character set
as a proper subset.
.\" Not true anymore:
.\" The portable character set is defined in the file
.\" .I /usr/lib/nls/charmap/POSIX
.\" .I /usr/share/i18n/charmap/POSIX
.\" for reference purposes.
.SH SYNTAX
The charmap file starts with a header, that may consist of the
following keywords:
.TP
.I <codeset>
is followed by the name of the codeset.
.TP
.I <mb_cur_max>
is followed by the max number of bytes for a multibyte-character.
Multibyte characters are currently not supported. The default value
is 1.
.TP
.I <mb_cur_min>
is followed by the min number of bytes for a character. This
value must be less or equal than 
.BR mb_cur_max .
If not specified, it defaults to
.BR mb_cur_max .
.TP
.I <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 (
.B \\\\  
).
.TP
.I <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 (
.B #
).

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

The following lines may have one of the two following forms to
define the character-encodings:
.TP
.I <symbolic-name> <encoding> <comments>
This form defines exactly one character and its encoding. 

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

.PP
The last line in a charmap-definition file must contain
.B END CHARMAP.
.SH "SYMBOLIC NAMES"
A 
.B symbolic name
for a character contains only characters of the 
.B portable character set.
The name itself is enclosed between angle brackets.
Characters following an
.B <escape_char> 
are interpreted as itself; for example, the sequence
.B '<\\\\\\\\\\\\>>'
represents the symbolic name
.B '\\\\>'
enclosed in angle brackets.
.SH "CHARACTER ENCODING"
The
encoding may be in each of the following three forms:
.TP
.I <escape_char>d<number>
with a decimal number
.TP
.I <escape_char>x<number>
with a hexadecimal number 
.TP
.I <escape_char><number>
with an octal  number.
.\" FIXME comments
.\" FIXME char ... char
.SH FILES
.I /usr/share/i18n/charmaps/*
.SH AUTHOR
Jochen Hein (jochen.hein@delphi.central.de)
.SH "CONFORMING TO"
POSIX.2
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR locale (1),
.BR localedef (1),
.BR localeconv (3),
.BR setlocale (3),
.BR locale (5)