- <STRONG>clear</STRONG> clears your screen if this is possible, including
- its scrollback buffer (if the extended "E3" capability is
- defined). <STRONG>clear</STRONG> looks in the environment for the terminal
- type and then in the <STRONG>terminfo</STRONG> database to determine how to
- clear the screen.
+ <STRONG>clear</STRONG> clears your terminal's screen if this is possible, including the
+ terminal's scrollback buffer (if the extended "E3" capability is
+ defined). <STRONG>clear</STRONG> looks in the environment for the terminal type given
+ by the environment variable <STRONG>TERM</STRONG>, and then in the <STRONG>terminfo</STRONG> database to
+ determine how to clear the screen.
+
+ <STRONG>clear</STRONG> writes to the standard output. You can redirect the standard
+ output to a file (which prevents <STRONG>clear</STRONG> from actually clearing the
+ screen), and later <STRONG>cat</STRONG> the file to the screen, clearing it at that
+ point.
+
+
+</PRE><H2><a name="h2-OPTIONS">OPTIONS</a></H2><PRE>
+ <STRONG>-T</STRONG> <EM>type</EM>
+ indicates the <EM>type</EM> of terminal. Normally this option is
+ unnecessary, because the default is taken from the environment
+ variable <STRONG>TERM</STRONG>. If <STRONG>-T</STRONG> is specified, then the shell variables <STRONG>LINES</STRONG>
+ and <STRONG>COLUMNS</STRONG> will also be ignored.
+
+ <STRONG>-V</STRONG> reports the version of ncurses which was used in this program, and
+ exits. The options are as follows: