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30 * @Id: tset.1,v 1.55 2020/02/02 23:34:34 tom Exp @
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42 <H1 class="no-header">tset 1</H1>
44 <STRONG><A HREF="tset.1.html">tset(1)</A></STRONG> General Commands Manual <STRONG><A HREF="tset.1.html">tset(1)</A></STRONG>
49 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-NAME">NAME</a></H2><PRE>
50 <STRONG>tset</STRONG>, <STRONG>reset</STRONG> - terminal initialization
53 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a></H2><PRE>
54 <STRONG>tset</STRONG> [<STRONG>-IQVcqrsw</STRONG>] [<STRONG>-</STRONG>] [<STRONG>-e</STRONG> <EM>ch</EM>] [<STRONG>-i</STRONG> <EM>ch</EM>] [<STRONG>-k</STRONG> <EM>ch</EM>] [<STRONG>-m</STRONG> <EM>mapping</EM>] [<EM>terminal</EM>]
55 <STRONG>reset</STRONG> [<STRONG>-IQVcqrsw</STRONG>] [<STRONG>-</STRONG>] [<STRONG>-e</STRONG> <EM>ch</EM>] [<STRONG>-i</STRONG> <EM>ch</EM>] [<STRONG>-k</STRONG> <EM>ch</EM>] [<STRONG>-m</STRONG> <EM>mapping</EM>] [<EM>terminal</EM>]
58 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a></H2><PRE>
60 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-tset---initialization">tset - initialization</a></H3><PRE>
61 This program initializes terminals.
63 First, <STRONG>tset</STRONG> retrieves the current terminal mode settings for your ter-
64 minal. It does this by successively testing
66 <STRONG>o</STRONG> the standard error,
68 <STRONG>o</STRONG> standard output,
70 <STRONG>o</STRONG> standard input and
72 <STRONG>o</STRONG> ultimately "/dev/tty"
74 to obtain terminal settings. Having retrieved these settings, <STRONG>tset</STRONG>
75 remembers which file descriptor to use when updating settings.
77 Next, <STRONG>tset</STRONG> determines the type of terminal that you are using. This
78 determination is done as follows, using the first terminal type found.
80 1. The <STRONG>terminal</STRONG> argument specified on the command line.
82 2. The value of the <STRONG>TERM</STRONG> environmental variable.
84 3. (BSD systems only.) The terminal type associated with the standard
85 error output device in the <EM>/etc/ttys</EM> file. (On System-V-like UNIXes
86 and systems using that convention, <EM>getty</EM> does this job by setting <STRONG>TERM</STRONG>
87 according to the type passed to it by <EM>/etc/inittab</EM>.)
89 4. The default terminal type, "unknown".
91 If the terminal type was not specified on the command-line, the <STRONG>-m</STRONG>
92 option mappings are then applied (see the section <STRONG>TERMINAL</STRONG> <STRONG>TYPE</STRONG> <STRONG>MAPPING</STRONG>
93 for more information). Then, if the terminal type begins with a ques-
94 tion mark ("?"), the user is prompted for confirmation of the terminal
95 type. An empty response confirms the type, or, another type can be
96 entered to specify a new type. Once the terminal type has been deter-
97 mined, the terminal description for the terminal is retrieved. If no
98 terminal description is found for the type, the user is prompted for
99 another terminal type.
101 Once the terminal description is retrieved,
103 <STRONG>o</STRONG> if the "<STRONG>-w</STRONG>" option is enabled, <STRONG>tset</STRONG> may update the terminal's win-
106 If the window size cannot be obtained from the operating system,
107 but the terminal description (or environment, e.g., <STRONG>LINES</STRONG> and <STRONG>COL-</STRONG>
108 <STRONG>UMNS</STRONG> variables specify this), use this to set the operating sys-
109 tem's notion of the window size.
111 <STRONG>o</STRONG> if the "<STRONG>-c</STRONG>" option is enabled, the backspace, interrupt and line
112 kill characters (among many other things) are set
114 <STRONG>o</STRONG> unless the "<STRONG>-I</STRONG>" option is enabled, the terminal and tab <EM>initializa-</EM>
115 <EM>tion</EM> strings are sent to the standard error output, and <STRONG>tset</STRONG> waits
116 one second (in case a hardware reset was issued).
118 <STRONG>o</STRONG> Finally, if the erase, interrupt and line kill characters have
119 changed, or are not set to their default values, their values are
120 displayed to the standard error output.
123 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-reset---reinitialization">reset - reinitialization</a></H3><PRE>
124 When invoked as <STRONG>reset</STRONG>, <STRONG>tset</STRONG> sets the terminal modes to "sane" values:
126 <STRONG>o</STRONG> sets cooked and echo modes,
128 <STRONG>o</STRONG> turns off cbreak and raw modes,
130 <STRONG>o</STRONG> turns on newline translation and
132 <STRONG>o</STRONG> resets any unset special characters to their default values
134 before doing the terminal initialization described above. Also, rather
135 than using the terminal <EM>initialization</EM> strings, it uses the terminal
136 <EM>reset</EM> strings.
138 The <STRONG>reset</STRONG> command is useful after a program dies leaving a terminal in
141 <STRONG>o</STRONG> you may have to type
143 <EM><LF></EM><STRONG>reset</STRONG><EM><LF></EM>
145 (the line-feed character is normally control-J) to get the terminal
146 to work, as carriage-return may no longer work in the abnormal
149 <STRONG>o</STRONG> Also, the terminal will often not echo the command.
152 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-OPTIONS">OPTIONS</a></H2><PRE>
153 The options are as follows:
155 <STRONG>-c</STRONG> Set control characters and modes.
157 <STRONG>-e</STRONG> Set the erase character to <EM>ch</EM>.
159 <STRONG>-I</STRONG> Do not send the terminal or tab initialization strings to the ter-
162 <STRONG>-i</STRONG> Set the interrupt character to <EM>ch</EM>.
164 <STRONG>-k</STRONG> Set the line kill character to <EM>ch</EM>.
166 <STRONG>-m</STRONG> Specify a mapping from a port type to a terminal. See the section
167 <STRONG>TERMINAL</STRONG> <STRONG>TYPE</STRONG> <STRONG>MAPPING</STRONG> for more information.
169 <STRONG>-Q</STRONG> Do not display any values for the erase, interrupt and line kill
170 characters. Normally <STRONG>tset</STRONG> displays the values for control charac-
171 ters which differ from the system's default values.
173 <STRONG>-q</STRONG> The terminal type is displayed to the standard output, and the
174 terminal is not initialized in any way. The option "-" by itself
175 is equivalent but archaic.
177 <STRONG>-r</STRONG> Print the terminal type to the standard error output.
179 <STRONG>-s</STRONG> Print the sequence of shell commands to initialize the environment
180 variable <STRONG>TERM</STRONG> to the standard output. See the section <STRONG>SETTING</STRONG> <STRONG>THE</STRONG>
181 <STRONG>ENVIRONMENT</STRONG> for details.
183 <STRONG>-V</STRONG> reports the version of ncurses which was used in this program, and
186 <STRONG>-w</STRONG> Resize the window to match the size deduced via <STRONG><A HREF="curs_terminfo.3x.html">setupterm(3x)</A></STRONG>.
187 Normally this has no effect, unless <STRONG>setupterm</STRONG> is not able to
188 detect the window size.
190 The arguments for the <STRONG>-e</STRONG>, <STRONG>-i</STRONG>, and <STRONG>-k</STRONG> options may either be entered as
191 actual characters or by using the "hat" notation, i.e., control-h may
192 be specified as "^H" or "^h".
194 If neither <STRONG>-c</STRONG> or <STRONG>-w</STRONG> is given, both options are assumed.
197 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-SETTING-THE-ENVIRONMENT">SETTING THE ENVIRONMENT</a></H2><PRE>
198 It is often desirable to enter the terminal type and information about
199 the terminal's capabilities into the shell's environment. This is done
200 using the <STRONG>-s</STRONG> option.
202 When the <STRONG>-s</STRONG> option is specified, the commands to enter the information
203 into the shell's environment are written to the standard output. If
204 the <STRONG>SHELL</STRONG> environmental variable ends in "csh", the commands are for
205 <STRONG>csh</STRONG>, otherwise, they are for <STRONG>sh</STRONG>. Note, the <STRONG>csh</STRONG> commands set and unset
206 the shell variable <STRONG>noglob</STRONG>, leaving it unset. The following line in the
207 <STRONG>.login</STRONG> or <STRONG>.profile</STRONG> files will initialize the environment correctly:
209 eval `tset -s options ... `
212 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-TERMINAL-TYPE-MAPPING">TERMINAL TYPE MAPPING</a></H2><PRE>
213 When the terminal is not hardwired into the system (or the current sys-
214 tem information is incorrect) the terminal type derived from the
215 <EM>/etc/ttys</EM> file or the <STRONG>TERM</STRONG> environmental variable is often something
216 generic like <STRONG>network</STRONG>, <STRONG>dialup</STRONG>, or <STRONG>unknown</STRONG>. When <STRONG>tset</STRONG> is used in a
217 startup script it is often desirable to provide information about the
218 type of terminal used on such ports.
220 The <STRONG>-m</STRONG> options maps from some set of conditions to a terminal type,
221 that is, to tell <STRONG>tset</STRONG> "If I'm on this port at a particular speed, guess
222 that I'm on that kind of terminal".
224 The argument to the <STRONG>-m</STRONG> option consists of an optional port type, an
225 optional operator, an optional baud rate specification, an optional
226 colon (":") character and a terminal type. The port type is a string
227 (delimited by either the operator or the colon character). The opera-
228 tor may be any combination of ">", "<", "@", and "!"; ">" means greater
229 than, "<" means less than, "@" means equal to and "!" inverts the sense
230 of the test. The baud rate is specified as a number and is compared
231 with the speed of the standard error output (which should be the con-
232 trol terminal). The terminal type is a string.
234 If the terminal type is not specified on the command line, the <STRONG>-m</STRONG> map-
235 pings are applied to the terminal type. If the port type and baud rate
236 match the mapping, the terminal type specified in the mapping replaces
237 the current type. If more than one mapping is specified, the first
238 applicable mapping is used.
240 For example, consider the following mapping: <STRONG>dialup>9600:vt100</STRONG>. The
241 port type is dialup , the operator is >, the baud rate specification is
242 9600, and the terminal type is vt100. The result of this mapping is to
243 specify that if the terminal type is <STRONG>dialup</STRONG>, and the baud rate is
244 greater than 9600 baud, a terminal type of <STRONG>vt100</STRONG> will be used.
246 If no baud rate is specified, the terminal type will match any baud
247 rate. If no port type is specified, the terminal type will match any
248 port type. For example, <STRONG>-m</STRONG> <STRONG>dialup:vt100</STRONG> <STRONG>-m</STRONG> <STRONG>:?xterm</STRONG> will cause any
249 dialup port, regardless of baud rate, to match the terminal type vt100,
250 and any non-dialup port type to match the terminal type ?xterm. Note,
251 because of the leading question mark, the user will be queried on a
252 default port as to whether they are actually using an xterm terminal.
254 No whitespace characters are permitted in the <STRONG>-m</STRONG> option argument.
255 Also, to avoid problems with meta-characters, it is suggested that the
256 entire <STRONG>-m</STRONG> option argument be placed within single quote characters, and
257 that <STRONG>csh</STRONG> users insert a backslash character ("\") before any exclama-
261 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-HISTORY">HISTORY</a></H2><PRE>
262 A <STRONG>reset</STRONG> command appeared in 2BSD (April 1979), written by Kurt Shoens.
263 This program set the <EM>erase</EM> and <EM>kill</EM> characters to <STRONG>^H</STRONG> (backspace) and <STRONG>@</STRONG>
264 respectively. Mark Horton improved that in 3BSD (October 1979), adding
265 <EM>intr</EM>, <EM>quit</EM>, <EM>start</EM>/<EM>stop</EM> and <EM>eof</EM> characters as well as changing the pro-
266 gram to avoid modifying any user settings.
268 Later in 4.1BSD (December 1980), Mark Horton added a call to the <STRONG>tset</STRONG>
269 program using the <STRONG>-I</STRONG> and <STRONG>-Q</STRONG> options, i.e., using that to improve the
270 terminal modes. With those options, that version of <STRONG>reset</STRONG> did not use
271 the termcap database.
273 A separate <STRONG>tset</STRONG> command was provided in 2BSD by Eric Allman. While the
274 oldest published source (from 1979) provides both <STRONG>tset</STRONG> and <STRONG>reset</STRONG>, All-
275 man's comments in the 2BSD source code indicate that he began work in
276 October 1977, continuing development over the next few years.
278 In September 1980, Eric Allman modified <STRONG>tset</STRONG>, adding the code from the
279 existing "reset" feature when <STRONG>tset</STRONG> was invoked as <STRONG>reset</STRONG>. Rather than
280 simply copying the existing program, in this merged version, <STRONG>tset</STRONG> used
281 the termcap database to do additional (re)initialization of the termi-
282 nal. This version appeared in 4.1cBSD, late in 1982.
284 Other developers (e.g., Keith Bostic and Jim Bloom) continued to modify
285 <STRONG>tset</STRONG> until 4.4BSD was released in 1993.
287 The <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> implementation was lightly adapted from the 4.4BSD sources
288 for a terminfo environment by Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>.
291 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-COMPATIBILITY">COMPATIBILITY</a></H2><PRE>
292 Neither IEEE Std 1003.1/The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7
293 (POSIX.1-2008) nor X/Open Curses Issue 7 documents <STRONG>tset</STRONG> or <STRONG>reset</STRONG>.
295 The AT&T <STRONG>tput</STRONG> utility (AIX, HPUX, Solaris) incorporated the terminal-
296 mode manipulation as well as termcap-based features such as resetting
297 tabstops from <STRONG>tset</STRONG> in BSD (4.1c), presumably with the intention of mak-
298 ing <STRONG>tset</STRONG> obsolete. However, each of those systems still provides <STRONG>tset</STRONG>.
299 In fact, the commonly-used <STRONG>reset</STRONG> utility is always an alias for <STRONG>tset</STRONG>.
301 The <STRONG>tset</STRONG> utility provides for backward-compatibility with BSD environ-
302 ments (under most modern UNIXes, <STRONG>/etc/inittab</STRONG> and <STRONG>getty(1)</STRONG> can set <STRONG>TERM</STRONG>
303 appropriately for each dial-up line; this obviates what was <STRONG>tset</STRONG>'s most
304 important use). This implementation behaves like 4.4BSD <STRONG>tset</STRONG>, with a
305 few exceptions specified here.
307 A few options are different because the <STRONG>TERMCAP</STRONG> variable is no longer
308 supported under terminfo-based <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG>:
310 <STRONG>o</STRONG> The <STRONG>-S</STRONG> option of BSD <STRONG>tset</STRONG> no longer works; it prints an error mes-
311 sage to the standard error and dies.
313 <STRONG>o</STRONG> The <STRONG>-s</STRONG> option only sets <STRONG>TERM</STRONG>, not <STRONG>TERMCAP</STRONG>.
315 There was an undocumented 4.4BSD feature that invoking <STRONG>tset</STRONG> via a link
316 named "TSET" (or via any other name beginning with an upper-case let-
317 ter) set the terminal to use upper-case only. This feature has been
320 The <STRONG>-A</STRONG>, <STRONG>-E</STRONG>, <STRONG>-h</STRONG>, <STRONG>-u</STRONG> and <STRONG>-v</STRONG> options were deleted from the <STRONG>tset</STRONG> utility in
321 4.4BSD. None of them were documented in 4.3BSD and all are of limited
322 utility at best. The <STRONG>-a</STRONG>, <STRONG>-d</STRONG>, and <STRONG>-p</STRONG> options are similarly not docu-
323 mented or useful, but were retained as they appear to be in widespread
324 use. It is strongly recommended that any usage of these three options
325 be changed to use the <STRONG>-m</STRONG> option instead. The <STRONG>-a</STRONG>, <STRONG>-d</STRONG>, and <STRONG>-p</STRONG> options
326 are therefore omitted from the usage summary above.
328 Very old systems, e.g., 3BSD, used a different terminal driver which
329 was replaced in 4BSD in the early 1980s. To accommodate these older
330 systems, the 4BSD <STRONG>tset</STRONG> provided a <STRONG>-n</STRONG> option to specify that the new
331 terminal driver should be used. This implementation does not provide
334 It is still permissible to specify the <STRONG>-e</STRONG>, <STRONG>-i</STRONG>, and <STRONG>-k</STRONG> options without
335 arguments, although it is strongly recommended that such usage be fixed
336 to explicitly specify the character.
338 As of 4.4BSD, executing <STRONG>tset</STRONG> as <STRONG>reset</STRONG> no longer implies the <STRONG>-Q</STRONG> option.
339 Also, the interaction between the - option and the <EM>terminal</EM> argument in
340 some historic implementations of <STRONG>tset</STRONG> has been removed.
342 The <STRONG>-c</STRONG> and <STRONG>-w</STRONG> options are not found in earlier implementations. How-
343 ever, a different window size-change feature was provided in 4.4BSD.
345 <STRONG>o</STRONG> In 4.4BSD, <STRONG>tset</STRONG> uses the window size from the termcap description
346 to set the window size if <STRONG>tset</STRONG> is not able to obtain the window
347 size from the operating system.
349 <STRONG>o</STRONG> In ncurses, <STRONG>tset</STRONG> obtains the window size using <STRONG>setupterm</STRONG>, which may
350 be from the operating system, the <STRONG>LINES</STRONG> and <STRONG>COLUMNS</STRONG> environment
351 variables or the terminal description.
353 Obtaining the window size from the terminal description is common to
354 both implementations, but considered obsolescent. Its only practical
355 use is for hardware terminals. Generally speaking, a window size would
356 be unset only if there were some problem obtaining the value from the
357 operating system (and <STRONG>setupterm</STRONG> would still fail). For that reason,
358 the <STRONG>LINES</STRONG> and <STRONG>COLUMNS</STRONG> environment variables may be useful for working
359 around window-size problems. Those have the drawback that if the win-
360 dow is resized, those variables must be recomputed and reassigned. To
361 do this more easily, use the <STRONG><A HREF="resize.1.html">resize(1)</A></STRONG> program.
364 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-ENVIRONMENT">ENVIRONMENT</a></H2><PRE>
365 The <STRONG>tset</STRONG> command uses these environment variables:
368 tells <STRONG>tset</STRONG> whether to initialize <STRONG>TERM</STRONG> using <STRONG>sh</STRONG> or <STRONG>csh</STRONG> syntax.
370 TERM Denotes your terminal type. Each terminal type is distinct,
371 though many are similar.
374 may denote the location of a termcap database. If it is not an
375 absolute pathname, e.g., begins with a "/", <STRONG>tset</STRONG> removes the vari-
376 able from the environment before looking for the terminal descrip-
380 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-FILES">FILES</a></H2><PRE>
382 system port name to terminal type mapping database (BSD versions
386 terminal capability database
389 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></H2><PRE>
390 <STRONG>csh(1)</STRONG>, <STRONG>sh(1)</STRONG>, <STRONG>stty(1)</STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="curs_terminfo.3x.html">curs_terminfo(3x)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG>tty(4)</STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>,
391 <STRONG>ttys(5)</STRONG>, <STRONG>environ(7)</STRONG>
393 This describes <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> version 6.2 (patch 20201031).
397 <STRONG><A HREF="tset.1.html">tset(1)</A></STRONG>
401 <li><a href="#h2-NAME">NAME</a></li>
402 <li><a href="#h2-SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a></li>
403 <li><a href="#h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a>
405 <li><a href="#h3-tset---initialization">tset - initialization</a></li>
406 <li><a href="#h3-reset---reinitialization">reset - reinitialization</a></li>
409 <li><a href="#h2-OPTIONS">OPTIONS</a></li>
410 <li><a href="#h2-SETTING-THE-ENVIRONMENT">SETTING THE ENVIRONMENT</a></li>
411 <li><a href="#h2-TERMINAL-TYPE-MAPPING">TERMINAL TYPE MAPPING</a></li>
412 <li><a href="#h2-HISTORY">HISTORY</a></li>
413 <li><a href="#h2-COMPATIBILITY">COMPATIBILITY</a></li>
414 <li><a href="#h2-ENVIRONMENT">ENVIRONMENT</a></li>
415 <li><a href="#h2-FILES">FILES</a></li>
416 <li><a href="#h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></li>