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 available 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 following keywords:

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

       <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.

       <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  brack-
       ets.   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 3.25 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)