The tput utility uses the terminfo database to make the
values of terminal-dependent capabilities and information
available to the shell (see sh(1)), to initialize or reset
@@ -71,19 +69,19 @@
terminal type. The result depends upon the capability's
type:
- string
- tput writes the string to the standard output.
- No trailing newline is supplied.
+ string
+ tput writes the string to the standard output. No
+ trailing newline is supplied.
- integer
- tput writes the decimal value to the standard
- output, with a trailing newline.
+ integer
+ tput writes the decimal value to the standard out-
+ put, with a trailing newline.
- boolean
- tput simply sets the exit code (0 for TRUE if
- the terminal has the capability, 1 for FALSE
- if it does not), and writes nothing to the
- standard output.
+ boolean
+ tput simply sets the exit code (0 for TRUE if the
+ terminal has the capability, 1 for FALSE if it
+ does not), and writes nothing to the standard out-
+ put.
Before using a value returned on the standard output, the
application should test the exit code (e.g., $?, see
@@ -91,29 +89,14 @@
NOSTICS sections.) For a complete list of capabilities
and the capname associated with each, see terminfo(5).
+
+
-Ttype indicates the type of terminal. Normally this
option is unnecessary, because the default is taken
from the environment variable TERM. If -T is spec-
ified, then the shell variables LINES and COLUMNS
will also be ignored.
- capname
- indicates the capability from the terminfo data-
- base. When termcap support is compiled in, the
- termcap name for the capability is also accepted.
-
- parms If the capability is a string that takes parame-
- ters, the arguments parms will be instantiated into
- the string.
-
- Most parameters are numbers. Only a few terminfo
- capabilities require string parameters; tput uses a
- table to decide which to pass as strings. Normally
- tput uses tparm (3x) to perform the substitution.
- If no parameters are given for the capability, tput
- writes the string without performing the substitu-
- tion.
-
-S allows more than one capability per invocation of
tput. The capabilities must be passed to tput from
the standard input instead of from the command line
@@ -123,57 +106,101 @@
CODES section).
Again, tput uses a table and the presence of param-
- eters in its input to decide whether to use tparm
- (3x), and how to interpret the parameters.
+ eters in its input to decide whether to use
+ tparm(3x), and how to interpret the parameters.
-V reports the version of ncurses which was used in
this program, and exits.
+
+
+ capname
+ indicates the capability from the terminfo data-
+ base. When termcap support is compiled in, the
+ termcap name for the capability is also accepted.
+
+ If the capability is a string that takes parame-
+ ters, the arguments following the capability will
+ be used as parameters for the string.
+
+ Most parameters are numbers. Only a few terminfo
+ capabilities require string parameters; tput uses a
+ table to decide which to pass as strings. Normally
+ tput uses tparm(3x) to perform the substitution.
+ If no parameters are given for the capability, tput
+ writes the string without performing the substitu-
+ tion.
+
init If the terminfo database is present and an entry
for the user's terminal exists (see -Ttype, above),
the following will occur:
- (1) if present, the terminal's initialization
- strings will be output as detailed in the
- terminfo(5) section on TabsandInitializa-
- tion,
+ (1) if present, the terminal's initialization
+ strings will be output as detailed in the ter-
+ minfo(5) section on TabsandInitialization,
- (2) any delays (e.g., newline) specified in the
- entry will be set in the tty driver,
+ (2) any delays (e.g., newline) specified in the
+ entry will be set in the tty driver,
- (3) tabs expansion will be turned on or off
- according to the specification in the entry,
- and
+ (3) tabs expansion will be turned on or off
+ according to the specification in the entry,
+ and
- (4) if tabs are not expanded, standard tabs will
- be set (every 8 spaces).
+ (4) if tabs are not expanded, standard tabs will
+ be set (every 8 spaces).
If an entry does not contain the information needed
- for any of the four above activities, that activity
- will silently be skipped.
-
- reset Instead of putting out initialization strings, the
- terminal's reset strings will be output if present
- (rs1, rs2, rs3, rf). If the reset strings are not
- present, but initialization strings are, the ini-
- tialization strings will be output. Otherwise,
+ for any of these activities, that activity will
+ silently be skipped.
+
+ reset Instead of putting out initialization strings, the
+ terminal's reset strings will be output if present
+ (rs1, rs2, rs3, rf). If the reset strings are not
+ present, but initialization strings are, the ini-
+ tialization strings will be output. Otherwise,
reset acts identically to init.
longname
- If the terminfo database is present and an entry
- for the user's terminal exists (see -Ttype above),
+ If the terminfo database is present and an entry
+ for the user's terminal exists (see -Ttype above),
then the long name of the terminal will be put out.
The long name is the last name in the first line of
the terminal's description in the terminfo database
[see term(5)].
- If tput is invoked by a link named reset, this has the
- same effect as tputreset. See tset for comparison, which
- has similar behavior.
+
+ tput handles the clear, init and reset commands specially:
+ it allows for the possibility that it is invoked by a link
+ with those names.
-
-
EXAMPLES
+ If tput is invoked by a link named reset, this has the
+ same effect as tputreset. The tset(1) utility also
+ treats a link named reset specially.
+
+ Before ncurses 6.1, the two utilities were different from
+ each other:
+
+ otset utility reset the terminal modes and special
+ characters (not done with tput).
+
+ o On the other hand, tset's repertoire of terminal capa-
+ bilities for resetting the terminal was more limited,
+ i.e., only reset_1string, reset_2string and reset_file
+ in contrast to the tab-stops and margins which are set
+ by this utility.
+
+ o The reset program is usually an alias for tset,
+ because of this difference with resetting terminal
+ modes and special characters.
+
+ If tput is invoked by a link named init, this has the same
+ effect as tputinit. Again, you are less likely to use
+ that link because another program named init has a more
+ well-established use.
+
+
+
tputinit
Initialize the terminal according to the type of ter-
minal in the environmental variable TERM. This com-
@@ -237,8 +264,7 @@
exclamation mark (!) on a line by itself.
-
/usr/share/terminfo
compiled terminal description database
@@ -246,12 +272,11 @@
tab settings for some terminals, in a format appro-
priate to be output to the terminal (escape
sequences that set margins and tabs); for more
- information, see the "Tabs and Initialization" sec-
+ information, see the TabsandInitialization, sec-
tion 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
@@ -261,35 +286,32 @@
If the -S option is not used, the exit code depends on the
type of capname:
- 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 terminal type (the value of capname
- is returned on standard output); a value of 1
- is set if capname is not defined for this ter-
- minal 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 ter-
- minal type, the user must test the value writ-
- ten 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 respec-
- tive files. In that case, the exit code is
- set to 4 + errno.
+ 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 terminal type (the value of capname is
+ returned on standard output); 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 cap-
+ name is defined for this terminal type. To
+ determine if capname is defined for this termi-
+ nal 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 that case, the exit code is set to 4
+ + errno.
Any other exit code indicates an error; see the DIAGNOS-
TICS section.
-
tput prints the following error messages and sets the cor-
responding exit codes.
@@ -306,45 +328,144 @@
---------------------------------------------------------------------
-
-
PORTABILITY
- The longname and -S options, and the parameter-substitu-
- tion features used in the cup example, are not supported
- in BSD curses or in AT&T/USL curses before SVr4.
-
- X/Open documents only the operands for clear, init and
- reset. In this implementation, clear is part of the cap-
- name support. Other implementations of tput on SVr4-based
- systems such as Solaris, IRIX64 and HPUX as well as others
- such as AIX and Tru64 provide support for capname oper-
- ands.
-
- A few platforms such as FreeBSD and NetBSD recognize term-
- cap names rather than terminfo capability names in their
- respective tput commands.
-
- Most implementations which provide support for capname op-
- erands use 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 that for the
- standard capname operands, and an internal library func-
- tion to analyze nonstandard capname operands. Other
- implementations may simply guess that an operand contain-
- ing only digits is intended to be a number.
+
+ The tput command was begun by Bill Joy in 1980. The ini-
+ tial 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 reset feature of BSD tset writ-
+ ten by Eric Allman. Later the corresponding source code
+ for reset was removed from the BSD tset (in June 1993,
+ released in 4.4BSD-Lite a year later).
+
+ Keith Bostic replaced the BSD tput command in 1989 with a
+ new implementation based on the AT&T System V program
+ tput. Like the AT&T program, Bostic's version accepted
+ some parameters named for terminfocapabilities (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 tput to clear the screen.
-
+ This implementation of tput differs from AT&T tput in two
+ important areas:
+
+ otputcapname writes to the standard output. That need
+ not be a regular terminal. However, the subcommands
+ which manipulate terminal modes may not use the stan-
+ dard output.
+
+ The AT&T implementation's init and reset commands use
+ the BSD (4.1c) tset source, which manipulates terminal
+ modes. It successively tries standard output, stan-
+ dard error, standard input before falling back to
+ "/dev/tty" and finally just assumes a 1200Bd terminal.
+ When updating terminal modes, it ignores errors.
+
+ 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 ulti-
+ mately 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.
+
+ o AT&T tput guesses the type of its capname operands by
+ seeing if all 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 to know which type
+ to use.
+
+ 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.
+
+ The longname and -S options, and the parameter-substitu-
+ tion 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. 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 corre-
+ spond to terminal capabilities.
+
+ o Other implementations of tput on SVr4-based systems
+ such as Solaris, IRIX64 and HPUX as well as others
+ such as AIX and Tru64 provide support for capname op-
+ erands.
+
+ 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 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 not be apparent.
+
+ o X/Open Curses Issue 7 documents tput differently, with
+ capname and the other features used in this implemen-
+ tation.
- This describes ncurses version 5.9 (patch 20141220).
+ 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 terminal capabilities
+ database.
+
+ o While it is certainly possible to write a tput program
+ without using curses, none of the systems which have a
+ curses implementation provide a tput utility which
+ does not provide the capname feature.
+
+
+