Each termcap entry can be up to 2 KB long, including comment lines.

Consider the following sample termcap description for a fictitious terminal called rti100:

It has an abbreviated name R1 and a long name rti fictitious terminal. (To use this with the forms system, set the TERM_INGRES environment variable/logical to rti100.) The rti100 screen is 132 columns wide and 25 lines high. It has automatic margins (am) and uses Control‑H for the backspace character (bs). The description contains an initialization string (is) and a cursor positioning string (cm).

As shown in this example, the first line of a termcap description is the list of names. All names must be separated by a vertical bar (|). There must be a colon (:) between the last name and the first capability.

If the termcap description is more than one line (as it is for clarity), then each line except the last must end with a backslash (\) to signify continuation. Capabilities, which can be presented in any order, must be separated by colons (:). The last line must end with a colon (:) to signify that it is the end of the description. You can place tabs at the beginning of lines for readability.