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8 term - conventions for naming terminal types
12 <H2>DESCRIPTION</H2><PRE>
13 The environment variable <B>TERM</B> should normally contain the
14 type name of the terminal, console or display-device type
15 you are using. This information is critical for all
16 screen-oriented programs, including your editor and
19 A default <B>TERM</B> value will be set on a per-line basis by
20 either <B>/etc/inittab</B> (Linux and System-V-like UNIXes) or
21 <B>/etc/ttys</B> (BSD UNIXes). This will nearly always suffice
22 for workstation and microcomputer consoles.
24 If you use a dialup line, the type of device attached to
25 it may vary. Older UNIX systems pre-set a very dumb ter-
26 minal type like `dumb' or `dialup' on dialup lines. Newer
27 ones may pre-set `vt100', reflecting the prevalence of DEC
28 VT100-compatible terminals and personal-computer emula-
31 Modern telnets pass your <B>TERM</B> environment variable from
32 the local side to the remote one. There can be problems
33 if the remote terminfo or termcap entry for your type is
34 not compatible with yours, but this situation is rare and
35 can almost always be avoided by explicitly exporting
36 `vt100' (assuming you are in fact using a VT100-superset
37 console, terminal, or terminal emulator.)
39 In any case, you are free to override the system <B>TERM</B> set-
40 ting to your taste in your shell profile. The <B><A HREF="tset.1.html">tset(1)</A></B>
41 utility may be of assistance; you can give it a set of
42 rules for deducing or requesting a terminal type based on
43 the tty device and baud rate.
45 Setting your own <B>TERM</B> value may also be useful if you have
46 created a custom entry incorporating options (such as
47 visual bell or reverse-video) which you wish to override
48 the system default type for your line.
50 Terminal type descriptions are stored as files of capabil-
51 ity data underneath /usr/share/terminfo. To browse a list
52 of all terminal names recognized by the system, do
56 from your shell. These capability files are in a binary
57 format optimized for retrieval speed (unlike the old text-
58 based <B>termcap</B> format they replace); to examine an entry,
59 you must use the <B><A HREF="infocmp.1.html">infocmp(1)</A></B> command. Invoke it as fol-
62 infocmp <I>entry-name</I>
64 where <I>entry-name</I> is the name of the type you wish to exam-
65 ine (and the name of its capability file the subdirectory
66 of /usr/share/terminfo named for its first letter). This
67 command dumps a capability file in the text format
68 described by <B><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></B>.
70 The first line of a <B><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></B> description gives the
71 names by which terminfo knows a terminal, separated by `|'
72 (pipe-bar) characters with the last name field terminated
73 by a comma. The first name field is the type's <I>primary</I>
74 <I>name</I>, and is the one to use when setting <B>TERM</B>. The last
75 name field (if distinct from the first) is actually a
76 description of the terminal type (it may contain blanks;
77 the others must be single words). Name fields between the
78 first and last (if present) are aliases for the terminal,
79 usually historical names retained for compatibility.
81 There are some conventions for how to choose terminal pri-
82 mary names that help keep them informative and unique.
83 Here is a step-by-step guide to naming terminals that also
84 explains how to parse them:
86 First, choose a root name. The root will consist of a
87 lower-case letter followed by up to seven lower-case let-
88 ters or digits. You need to avoid using punctuation char-
89 acters in root names, because they are used and inter-
90 preted as filenames and shell meta-characters (such as !,
91 $, *, ? etc.) embedded in them may cause odd and unhelpful
92 behavior. The slash (/), or any other character that may
93 be interpreted by anyone's file system (\, $, [, ]), is
94 especially dangerous (terminfo is platform-independent,
95 and choosing names with special characters could someday
96 make life difficult for users of a future port). The dot
97 (.) character is relatively safe as long as there is at
98 most one per root name; some historical terminfo names use
101 The root name for a terminal or workstation console type
102 should almost always begin with a vendor prefix (such as
103 <B>hp</B> for Hewlett-Packard, <B>wy</B> for Wyse, or <B>att</B> for AT&T ter-
104 minals), or a common name of the terminal line (<B>vt</B> for the
105 VT series of terminals from DEC, or <B>sun</B> for Sun Microsys-
106 tems workstation consoles, or <B>regent</B> for the ADDS Regent
107 series. You can list the terminfo tree to see what pre-
108 fixes are already in common use. The root name prefix
109 should be followed when appropriate by a model number;
110 thus <B>vt100</B>, <B>hp2621</B>, <B>wy50</B>.
112 The root name for a PC-Unix console type should be the OS
113 name, i.e. <B>linux</B>, <B>bsdos</B>, <B>freebsd</B>, <B>netbsd</B>. It should <I>not</I>
114 be <B>console</B> or any other generic that might cause confusion
115 in a multi-platform environment! If a model number fol-
116 lows, it should indicate either the OS release level or
117 the console driver release level.
118 The root name for a terminal emulator (assuming it doesn't
119 fit one of the standard ANSI or vt100 types) should be the
120 program name or a readily recognizable abbreviation of it
121 (i.e. <B>versaterm</B>, <B>ctrm</B>).
123 Following the root name, you may add any reasonable number
124 of hyphen-separated feature suffixes.
126 2p Has two pages of memory. Likewise 4p, 8p, etc.
128 mc Magic-cookie. Some terminals (notably older Wyses)
129 can only support one attribute without magic-cookie
130 lossage. Their base entry is usually paired with
131 another that has this suffix and uses magic cookies
132 to support multiple attributes.
134 -am Enable auto-margin (right-margin wraparound)
136 -m Mono mode - suppress color support
138 -na No arrow keys - termcap ignores arrow keys which are
139 actually there on the terminal, so the user can use
140 the arrow keys locally.
142 -nam No auto-margin - suppress am capability
144 -nl No labels - suppress soft labels
146 -nsl No status line - suppress status line
148 -pp Has a printer port which is used.
150 -rv Terminal in reverse video mode (black on white)
152 -s Enable status line.
154 -vb Use visible bell (flash) rather than beep.
156 -w Wide; terminal is in 132 column mode.
158 Conventionally, if your terminal type is a variant
159 intended to specify a line height, that suffix should go
160 first. So, for a hypothetical FuBarCo model 2317 terminal
161 in 30-line mode with reverse video, best form would be
162 <B>fubar-30-rv</B> (rather than, say, `fubar-rv-30').
164 Terminal types that are written not as standalone entries,
165 but rather as components to be plugged into other entries
166 via <B>use</B> capabilities, are distinguished by using embedded
167 plus signs rather than dashes.
169 Commands which use a terminal type to control display
170 often accept a -T option that accepts a terminal name
171 argument. Such programs should fall back on the <B>TERM</B>
172 environment variable when no -T option is specified.
176 <H2>PORTABILITY</H2><PRE>
177 For maximum compatibility with older System V UNIXes,
178 names and aliases should be unique within the first 14
184 /usr/share/terminfo/?/*
185 compiled terminal capability data base
188 tty line initialization (AT&T-like UNIXes).
191 tty line initialization (BSD-like UNIXes).
195 <H2>SEE ALSO</H2><PRE>
196 <B><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">curses(3x)</A></B>, <B><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></B>, <B><A HREF="term.5.html">term(5)</A></B>.
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