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Red Hat Documentation: man pages: man5: Linux User Manual (5)

Manpage of charmap
charmap
Section: Linux User Manual (5)
Updated: 28 Nov 2025
Index
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. The portable character set is defined in the file /usr/lib/nls/charmap/POSIX for reference purposes.
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 for 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 isenclosed between angle brackets. Characters following the <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/lib/nls/charmap/*
AUTHOR
Jochen Hein (jochen.hein@delphi.central.de)
CONFORMING TO
POSIX.2
SEE ALSO

Index

NAME

DESCRIPTION

SYNTAX

SYMBOLIC NAMES

CHARACTER ENCODING

FILES

AUTHOR

CONFORMING TO

SEE ALSO

This document was created by using the manual pages.
Time: 12:12:24 GMT, March 24, 2025

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