redhat man page for charmap

charmap(5)							 Linux User Manual							charmap(5)

NAME
       charmap - character symbols to define character encodings

DESCRIPTION
       A  character  set  description  (charmap)  defines a characterset 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 mutlibyte-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/*

AUTHOR
       Jochen Hein (jochen.hein@delphi.central.de)

CONFORMING TO
       POSIX.2

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

National Language Support					    1994-11-28								charmap(5)