.\" Copyright (c) 2009, Oracle and/or its affiliates. .\" .\" Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a .\" copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), .\" to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation .\" the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, .\" and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the .\" Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: .\" .\" The above copyright notice and this permission notice (including the next .\" paragraph) shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the .\" Software. .\" .\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR .\" IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, .\" FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL .\" THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER .\" LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING .\" FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER .\" DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. .\" .\" shorthand for double quote that works everywhere. .ds q \N'34' .ds xL Xlib \- C Language X Interface .TH Compose 5 "libX11 1.8.7" "X Version 11" .SH NAME Compose \- X client mappings for multi-key input sequences .SH DESCRIPTION The X library, libX11, provides a simple input method for characters beyond those represented on typical keyboards using sequences of key strokes that are combined to enter a single character. .PP The compose file is searched for in the following order: .IP - If the environment variable .B $XCOMPOSEFILE is set, its value is used as the name of the Compose file. .IP - If the user's home directory has a file named .IR .XCompose , it is used as the Compose file. .IP - The system provided compose file is used by mapping the locale to a compose file from the list in .IR /usr/share/X11/locale/compose.dir . .PP Compose files can use an .RB \*q include \*q instruction. This allows local modifications to be made to existing compose files without including all of the content directly. For example, the system's iso8859-1 compose file can be included with a line like this: .RS 4 .BI "include \*q" %S/iso8859-1/Compose \*q .RE .PP There are several substitutions that can be made in the file name of the include instruction: .TP 4 .I %H expands to the user's home directory (the .B $HOME environment variable) .TP 4 .I %L expands to the name of the locale specific Compose file (i.e., .RI \*q /usr/share/X11/locale//Compose \*q) .TP 4 .I %S expands to the name of the system directory for Compose files (i.e., .RI \*q /usr/share/X11/locale \*q) .PP For example, you can include in your compose file the default Compose file by using: .RS .B "include \*q%L\*q" .RE and then rewrite only the few rules that you need to change. New compose rules can be added, and previous ones replaced. .SH FILE FORMAT .\" Based on grammar description in modules/im/ximcp/imLcPrs.c Compose files are plain text files, with a separate line for each compose sequence. Comments begin with \fB#\fP characters. Each compose sequence specifies one or more events and a resulting input sequence, with an optional comment at the end of the line: .RS \fIEVENT\fP [\fIEVENT\fP...] \fB:\fP \fIRESULT\fP [\fB#\fP \fICOMMENT\fP] .RE .PP Each event consists of a specified input keysym, and optional modifier states: .RS [([\fB!\fP] ([\fB~\fP] \fIMODIFIER\fP)...) | \fBNone\fP] \fB<\fP\fIkeysym\fP\fB>\fP .RE .PP If the modifier list is preceded by .RB \*q "!" \*q it must match exactly. MODIFIER may be one of Ctrl, Lock, Caps, Shift, Alt or Meta. Each modifier may be preceded by a .RB \*q "~" \*q character to indicate that the modifier must not be present. If .RB \*q "None" \*q is specified, no modifier may be present. .PP The result specifies a string, keysym, or both, that the X client receives as input when the sequence of events is input: .RS \fB\*q\fP\fISTRING\fP\fB\*q\fP | \fIkeysym\fP | \fB\*q\fP\fISTRING\fP\fB\*q\fP \fIkeysym\fP .RE .PP Keysyms are specified without the \fBXK_\fP prefix. .PP Strings may be direct text encoded in the locale for which the compose file is to be used, or an escaped octal or hexadecimal character code. Octal codes are specified as \fB\*q\\123\*q\fP and hexadecimal codes as \fB\*q\\x3a\*q\fP. It is not necessary to specify in the right part of a rule a locale encoded string in addition to the keysym name. If the string is omitted, Xlib figures it out from the keysym according to the current locale. I.e., if a rule looks like: .RS \fB : \*q\\300\*q Agrave\fP .RE the result of the composition is always the letter with the "\\300" code. But if the rule is: .RS \fB : Agrave\fP .RE the result depends on how Agrave is mapped in the current locale. .SH ENVIRONMENT .TP .B XCOMPOSEFILE File to use for compose sequences. .TP .B XCOMPOSECACHE Directory to use for caching compiled compose files. .SH FILES .TP .I $HOME/.XCompose User default compose file if XCOMPOSEFILE is not set. .TP .I /usr/share/X11/locale/compose.dir File listing the compose file path to use for each locale. .TP .I /usr/share/X11/locale//Compose System default compose file for the locale, mapped via compose.dir. .TP .I /var/cache/libx11/compose/ System-wide cache directory for compiled compose files. .TP .I $HOME/.compose-cache/ Per-user cache directory for compiled compose files. .SH SEE ALSO .BR XLookupString (3), .BR XmbLookupString (3), .BR XwcLookupString (3), .BR Xutf8LookupString (3), .BR mkcomposecache (1), .BR locale (7). .br \fI\*(xL\fP