-tput(1)tput(1)
+tput(1) General Commands Manual tput(1)
@@ -232,7 +232,7 @@
pens to be a hardware terminal.
o The two programs write the terminal initialization strings to dif-
- ferent streams (i.e.,. the standard error for tset and the standard
+ ferent streams (i.e., the standard error for tset and the standard
output for tput).
Note: although these programs write to different streams, redirect-
@@ -245,20 +245,41 @@
program named init has a more well-established use.
+
+ Besides the special commands (e.g., clear), tput treats certain ter-
+ minfo capabilities specially: lines and columns. tput calls
+ setupterm(3x) to obtain the terminal size:
+
+ o first, it gets the size from the terminal database (which generally
+ is not provided for terminal emulators which do not have a fixed
+ window size)
+
+ o then it asks the operating system for the terminal's size (which
+ generally works, unless connecting via a serial line which does not
+ support NAWS: negotiations about window size).
+
+ o finally, it inspects the environment variables LINES and COLUMNS
+ which may override the terminal size.
+
+ If the -T option is given tput ignores the environment variables by
+ calling use_tioctl(TRUE), relying upon the operating system (or
+ finally, the terminal database).
+
+
tputinit
- Initialize the terminal according to the type of terminal in the
- environmental variable TERM. This command should be included in
+ Initialize the terminal according to the type of terminal in the
+ environmental variable TERM. This command should be included in
everyone's .profile after the environmental variable TERM has been
exported, as illustrated on the profile(5) manual page.
tput-T5620reset
- Reset an AT&T 5620 terminal, overriding the type of terminal in
+ Reset an AT&T 5620 terminal, overriding the type of terminal in
the environmental variable TERM.
tputcup00
Send the sequence to move the cursor to row 0, column 0 (the upper
- left corner of the screen, usually known as the "home" cursor
+ left corner of the screen, usually known as the "home" cursor
position).
tputclear
@@ -271,24 +292,24 @@
Print the number of columns for the 450 terminal.
bold=`tputsmso`offbold=`tputrmso`
- Set the shell variables bold, to begin stand-out mode sequence,
+ Set the shell variables bold, to begin stand-out mode sequence,
and offbold, to end standout mode sequence, for the current termi-
nal. This might be followed by a prompt: echo"${bold}Pleasetypeinyourname:${offbold}\c"tputhc
- Set exit code to indicate if the current terminal is a hard copy
+ Set exit code to indicate if the current terminal is a hard copy
terminal.
tputcup234
Send the sequence to move the cursor to row 23, column 4.
tputcup
- Send the terminfo string for cursor-movement, with no parameters
+ Send the terminfo string for cursor-movement, with no parameters
substituted.
tputlongname
- Print the long name from the terminfo database for the type of
+ Print the long name from the terminfo database for the type of
terminal specified in the environmental variable TERM.
tput-S<<!
@@ -297,9 +318,9 @@
>bold>!
- This example shows tput processing several capabilities in one
- invocation. It clears the screen, moves the cursor to position
- 10, 10 and turns on bold (extra bright) mode. The list is termi-
+ This example shows tput processing several capabilities in one
+ invocation. It clears the screen, moves the cursor to position
+ 10, 10 and turns on bold (extra bright) mode. The list is termi-
nated by an exclamation mark (!) on a line by itself.
@@ -308,50 +329,50 @@
compiled terminal description database
/usr/share/tabset/*
- tab settings for some terminals, in a format appropriate to be
- output to the terminal (escape sequences that set margins and
- tabs); for more information, see the TabsandInitialization,
+ tab settings for some terminals, in a format appropriate to be
+ output to the terminal (escape sequences that set margins and
+ tabs); for more information, see the TabsandInitialization,
section of terminfo(5)
If the -S option is used, tput checks for errors from each line, and if
- any errors are found, will set the exit code to 4 plus the number of
- lines with errors. If no errors are found, the exit code is 0. No
- indication of which line failed can be given so exit code 1 will never
- appear. Exit codes 2, 3, and 4 retain their usual interpretation. If
- the -S option is not used, the exit code depends on the type of cap-
+ any errors are found, will set the exit code to 4 plus the number of
+ lines with errors. If no errors are found, the exit code is 0. No
+ indication of which line failed can be given so exit code 1 will never
+ appear. Exit codes 2, 3, and 4 retain their usual interpretation. If
+ the -S option is not used, the exit code depends on the type of cap-name:
boolean
a value of 0 is set for TRUE and 1 for FALSE.
string a value of 0 is set if the capname is defined for this termi-
- nal type (the value of capname is returned on standard out-
- put); a value of 1 is set if capname is not defined for this
+ nal type (the value of capname is returned on standard out-
+ put); a value of 1 is set if capname is not defined for this
terminal type (nothing is written to standard output).
integer
a value of 0 is always set, whether or not capname is defined
- for this terminal type. To determine if capname is defined
- for this terminal type, the user must test the value written
- to standard output. A value of -1 means that capname is not
+ for this terminal type. To determine if capname is defined
+ for this terminal type, the user must test the value written
+ to standard output. A value of -1 means that capname is not
defined for this terminal type.
- otherreset or init may fail to find their respective files. In
+ otherreset or init may fail to find their respective files. In
that case, the exit code is set to 4 + errno.
Any other exit code indicates an error; see the DIAGNOSTICS section.
- tput prints the following error messages and sets the corresponding
+ tput prints the following error messages and sets the corresponding
exit codes.
exit code error message
---------------------------------------------------------------------
- 0 (capname is a numeric variable that is not specified in
- the terminfo(5) database for this terminal type, e.g.
+ 0 (capname is a numeric variable that is not specified in
+ the terminfo(5) database for this terminal type, e.g.
tput-T450lines and tput-T2621xmc)
1 no error message is printed, see the EXITCODES section.
2 usage error
@@ -362,19 +383,19 @@
- The tput command was begun by Bill Joy in 1980. The initial version
+ The tput command was begun by Bill Joy in 1980. The initial version
only cleared the screen.
- AT&T System V provided a different tput command, whose init and reset
- subcommands (more than half the program) were incorporated from the
+ AT&T System V provided a different tput command, whose init and reset
+ subcommands (more than half the program) were incorporated from the
reset feature of BSD tset written by Eric Allman.
Keith Bostic replaced the BSD tput command in 1989 with a new implemen-
tation based on the AT&T System V program tput. Like the AT&T program,
- Bostic's version accepted some parameters named for terminfocapabili-
- ties (clear, init, longname and reset). However (because he had only
- termcap available), it accepted termcapnames for other capabilities.
- Also, Bostic's BSD tput did not modify the terminal I/O modes as the
+ Bostic's version accepted some parameters named for terminfocapabili-
+ ties (clear, init, longname and reset). However (because he had only
+ termcap available), it accepted termcapnames for other capabilities.
+ Also, Bostic's BSD tput did not modify the terminal I/O modes as the
earlier BSD tset had done.
At the same time, Bostic added a shell script named "clear", which used
@@ -383,33 +404,33 @@
Both of these appeared in 4.4BSD, becoming the "modern" BSD implementa-
tion of tput.
- This implementation of tput began from a different source than AT&T or
- BSD: Ross Ridge's mytinfo package, published on comp.sources.unix in
+ This implementation of tput began from a different source than AT&T or
+ BSD: Ross Ridge's mytinfo package, published on comp.sources.unix in
December 1992. Ridge's program made more sophisticated use of the ter-
- minal capabilities than the BSD program. Eric Raymond used the tput
- program (and other parts of mytinfo) in ncurses in June 1995. Using
- the portions dealing with terminal capabilities almost without change,
- Raymond made improvements to the way the command-line parameters were
+ minal capabilities than the BSD program. Eric Raymond used that tput
+ program (and other parts of mytinfo) in ncurses in June 1995. Using
+ the portions dealing with terminal capabilities almost without change,
+ Raymond made improvements to the way the command-line parameters were
handled.
- This implementation of tput differs from AT&T tput in two important
+ This implementation of tput differs from AT&T tput in two important
areas:
- otputcapname writes to the standard output. That need not be a
+ otputcapname writes to the standard output. That need not be a
regular terminal. However, the subcommands which manipulate termi-
nal modes may not use the standard output.
- The AT&T implementation's init and reset commands use the BSD
- (4.1c) tset source, which manipulates terminal modes. It succes-
+ The AT&T implementation's init and reset commands use the BSD
+ (4.1c) tset source, which manipulates terminal modes. It succes-
sively tries standard output, standard error, standard input before
falling back to "/dev/tty" and finally just assumes a 1200Bd termi-
nal. When updating terminal modes, it ignores errors.
- Until changes made after ncurses 6.0, tput did not modify terminal
+ Until changes made after ncurses 6.0, tput did not modify terminal
modes. tput now uses a similar scheme, using functions shared with
- tset (and ultimately based on the 4.4BSD tset). If it is not able
+ tset (and ultimately based on the 4.4BSD tset). If it is not able
to open a terminal, e.g., when running in cron, tput will return an
error.
@@ -417,72 +438,91 @@
of the characters are numeric, or not.
Most implementations which provide support for capname operands use
- the tparm function to expand parameters in it. That function
- expects a mixture of numeric and string parameters, requiring tput
+ the tparm function to expand parameters in it. That function
+ expects a mixture of numeric and string parameters, requiring tput
to know which type to use.
- This implementation uses a table to determine the parameter types
+ This implementation uses a table to determine the parameter types
for the standard capname operands, and an internal library function
to analyze nonstandard capname operands.
- This implementation (unlike others) can accept both termcap and ter-
+ This implementation (unlike others) can accept both termcap and ter-minfo names for the capname feature, if termcap support is compiled in.
However, the predefined termcap and terminfo names have two ambiguities
in this case (and the terminfo name is assumed):
- o The termcap name dl corresponds to the terminfo name dl1 (delete
+ o The termcap name dl corresponds to the terminfo name dl1 (delete
one line).
- The terminfo name dl corresponds to the termcap name DL (delete a
+ The terminfo name dl corresponds to the termcap name DL (delete a
given number of lines).
- o The termcap name ed corresponds to the terminfo name rmdc (end
+ o The termcap name ed corresponds to the terminfo name rmdc (end
delete mode).
- The terminfo name ed corresponds to the termcap name cd (clear to
+ The terminfo name ed corresponds to the termcap name cd (clear to
end of screen).
- The longname and -S options, and the parameter-substitution features
- used in the cup example, were not supported in BSD curses before
+ The longname and -S options, and the parameter-substitution features
+ used in the cup example, were not supported in BSD curses before
4.3reno (1989) or in AT&T/USL curses before SVr4 (1988).
- IEEE Std 1003.1/The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7
- (POSIX.1-2008) documents only the operands for clear, init and reset.
+ IEEE Std 1003.1/The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7
+ (POSIX.1-2008) documents only the operands for clear, init and reset.
There are a few interesting observations to make regarding that:
- o In this implementation, clear is part of the capname support. The
- others (init and longname) do not correspond to terminal capabili-
+ o In this implementation, clear is part of the capname support. The
+ others (init and longname) do not correspond to terminal capabili-
ties.
o Other implementations of tput on SVr4-based systems such as
- Solaris, IRIX64 and HPUX as well as others such as AIX and Tru64
+ Solaris, IRIX64 and HPUX as well as others such as AIX and Tru64
provide support for capname operands.
o A few platforms such as FreeBSD recognize termcap names rather than
terminfo capability names in their respective tput commands. Since
- 2010, NetBSD's tput uses terminfo names. Before that, it (like
+ 2010, NetBSD's tput uses terminfo names. Before that, it (like
FreeBSD) recognized termcap names.
Because (apparently) all of the certified Unix systems support the full
- set of capability names, the reasoning for documenting only a few may
+ set of capability names, the reasoning for documenting only a few may
not be apparent.
- o X/Open Curses Issue 7 documents tput differently, with capname and
+ o X/Open Curses Issue 7 documents tput differently, with capname and
the other features used in this implementation.
- o That is, there are two standards for tput: POSIX (a subset) and
- X/Open Curses (the full implementation). POSIX documents a subset
+ o That is, there are two standards for tput: POSIX (a subset) and
+ X/Open Curses (the full implementation). POSIX documents a subset
to avoid the complication of including X/Open Curses and the termi-
nal capabilities database.
- o While it is certainly possible to write a tput program without
- using curses, none of the systems which have a curses implementa-
+ o While it is certainly possible to write a tput program without
+ using curses, none of the systems which have a curses implementa-
tion provide a tput utility which does not provide the capname fea-
ture.
+ X/Open Curses Issue 7 (2009) is the first version to document utili-
+ ties. However that part of X/Open Curses does not follow existing
+ practice (i.e., Unix features documented in SVID 3):
+
+ o It assigns exit code 4 to "invalid operand", which may be the same
+ as unknowncapability. For instance, the source code for Solaris'
+ xcurses uses the term "invalid" in this case.
+
+ o It assigns exit code 255 to a numeric variable that is not speci-
+ fied in the terminfo database. That likely is a documentation
+ error, confusing the -1 written to the standard output for an
+ absent or cancelled numeric value versus an (unsigned) exit code.
+
+ The various Unix systems (AIX, HPUX, Solaris) use the same exit-codes
+ as ncurses.
+
+ NetBSD curses documents different exit codes which do not correspond to
+ either ncurses or X/Open.
+