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30 * @Id: tset.1,v 1.62 2022/02/12 20:02:20 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
64 terminal. 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, <STRONG>getty(1)</STRONG> does this job by setting
87 <STRONG>TERM</STRONG> 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
94 question mark ("?"), the user is prompted for confirmation of the
95 terminal type. An empty response confirms the type, or, another type
96 can be entered to specify a new type. Once the terminal type has been
97 determined, the terminal description for the terminal is retrieved. If
98 no 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
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
108 <STRONG>COLUMNS</STRONG> variables specify this), use this to set the operating
109 system'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
115 <EM>initialization</EM> strings are sent to the standard error output, and
116 <STRONG>tset</STRONG> waits 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> <EM>ch</EM>
158 Set the erase character to <EM>ch</EM>.
160 <STRONG>-I</STRONG> Do not send the terminal or tab initialization strings to the
163 <STRONG>-i</STRONG> <EM>ch</EM>
164 Set the interrupt character to <EM>ch</EM>.
166 <STRONG>-k</STRONG> <EM>ch</EM>
167 Set the line kill character to <EM>ch</EM>.
169 <STRONG>-m</STRONG> <EM>mapping</EM>
170 Specify a mapping from a port type to a terminal. See the section
171 <STRONG>TERMINAL</STRONG> <STRONG>TYPE</STRONG> <STRONG>MAPPING</STRONG> for more information.
173 <STRONG>-Q</STRONG> Do not display any values for the erase, interrupt and line kill
174 characters. Normally <STRONG>tset</STRONG> displays the values for control
175 characters which differ from the system's default values.
177 <STRONG>-q</STRONG> The terminal type is displayed to the standard output, and the
178 terminal is not initialized in any way. The option "-" by itself
179 is equivalent but archaic.
181 <STRONG>-r</STRONG> Print the terminal type to the standard error output.
183 <STRONG>-s</STRONG> Print the sequence of shell commands to initialize the environment
184 variable <STRONG>TERM</STRONG> to the standard output. See the section <STRONG>SETTING</STRONG> <STRONG>THE</STRONG>
185 <STRONG>ENVIRONMENT</STRONG> for details.
187 <STRONG>-V</STRONG> reports the version of ncurses which was used in this program, and
190 <STRONG>-w</STRONG> Resize the window to match the size deduced via <STRONG><A HREF="curs_terminfo.3x.html">setupterm(3x)</A></STRONG>.
191 Normally this has no effect, unless <STRONG>setupterm</STRONG> is not able to
192 detect the window size.
194 The arguments for the <STRONG>-e</STRONG>, <STRONG>-i</STRONG>, and <STRONG>-k</STRONG> options may either be entered as
195 actual characters or by using the "hat" notation, i.e., control-h may
196 be specified as "^H" or "^h".
198 If neither <STRONG>-c</STRONG> or <STRONG>-w</STRONG> is given, both options are assumed.
201 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-SETTING-THE-ENVIRONMENT">SETTING THE ENVIRONMENT</a></H2><PRE>
202 It is often desirable to enter the terminal type and information about
203 the terminal's capabilities into the shell's environment. This is done
204 using the <STRONG>-s</STRONG> option.
206 When the <STRONG>-s</STRONG> option is specified, the commands to enter the information
207 into the shell's environment are written to the standard output. If
208 the <STRONG>SHELL</STRONG> environmental variable ends in "csh", the commands are for
209 <STRONG>csh</STRONG>, otherwise, they are for <STRONG>sh(1)</STRONG>. Note, the <STRONG>csh</STRONG> commands set and
210 unset the shell variable <STRONG>noglob</STRONG>, leaving it unset. The following line
211 in the <STRONG>.login</STRONG> or <STRONG>.profile</STRONG> files will initialize the environment
214 eval `tset -s options ... `
217 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-TERMINAL-TYPE-MAPPING">TERMINAL TYPE MAPPING</a></H2><PRE>
218 When the terminal is not hardwired into the system (or the current
219 system information is incorrect) the terminal type derived from the
220 <EM>/etc/ttys</EM> file or the <STRONG>TERM</STRONG> environmental variable is often something
221 generic like <STRONG>network</STRONG>, <STRONG>dialup</STRONG>, or <STRONG>unknown</STRONG>. When <STRONG>tset</STRONG> is used in a
222 startup script it is often desirable to provide information about the
223 type of terminal used on such ports.
225 The <STRONG>-m</STRONG> options maps from some set of conditions to a terminal type,
226 that is, to tell <STRONG>tset</STRONG> "If I'm on this port at a particular speed, guess
227 that I'm on that kind of terminal".
229 The argument to the <STRONG>-m</STRONG> option consists of an optional port type, an
230 optional operator, an optional baud rate specification, an optional
231 colon (":") character and a terminal type. The port type is a string
232 (delimited by either the operator or the colon character). The
233 operator may be any combination of ">", "<", "@", and "!"; ">" means
234 greater than, "<" means less than, "@" means equal to and "!" inverts
235 the sense of the test. The baud rate is specified as a number and is
236 compared with the speed of the standard error output (which should be
237 the control terminal). The terminal type is a string.
239 If the terminal type is not specified on the command line, the <STRONG>-m</STRONG>
240 mappings are applied to the terminal type. If the port type and baud
241 rate match the mapping, the terminal type specified in the mapping
242 replaces the current type. If more than one mapping is specified, the
243 first applicable mapping is used.
245 For example, consider the following mapping: <STRONG>dialup>9600:vt100</STRONG>. The
246 port type is dialup , the operator is >, the baud rate specification is
247 9600, and the terminal type is vt100. The result of this mapping is to
248 specify that if the terminal type is <STRONG>dialup</STRONG>, and the baud rate is
249 greater than 9600 baud, a terminal type of <STRONG>vt100</STRONG> will be used.
251 If no baud rate is specified, the terminal type will match any baud
252 rate. If no port type is specified, the terminal type will match any
253 port type. For example, <STRONG>-m</STRONG> <STRONG>dialup:vt100</STRONG> <STRONG>-m</STRONG> <STRONG>:?xterm</STRONG> will cause any
254 dialup port, regardless of baud rate, to match the terminal type vt100,
255 and any non-dialup port type to match the terminal type ?xterm. Note,
256 because of the leading question mark, the user will be queried on a
257 default port as to whether they are actually using an xterm terminal.
259 No whitespace characters are permitted in the <STRONG>-m</STRONG> option argument.
260 Also, to avoid problems with meta-characters, it is suggested that the
261 entire <STRONG>-m</STRONG> option argument be placed within single quote characters, and
262 that <STRONG>csh</STRONG> users insert a backslash character ("\") before any
263 exclamation marks ("!").
266 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-HISTORY">HISTORY</a></H2><PRE>
267 A <STRONG>reset</STRONG> command appeared in 1BSD (March 1978), written by Kurt Shoens.
268 This program set the <EM>erase</EM> and <EM>kill</EM> characters to <STRONG>^H</STRONG> (backspace) and <STRONG>@</STRONG>
269 respectively. Mark Horton improved that in 3BSD (October 1979), adding
270 <EM>intr</EM>, <EM>quit</EM>, <EM>start</EM>/<EM>stop</EM> and <EM>eof</EM> characters as well as changing the
271 program to avoid modifying any user settings. That version of <STRONG>reset</STRONG>
272 did not use the termcap database.
274 A separate <STRONG>tset</STRONG> command was provided in 1BSD by Eric Allman, using the
275 termcap database. Allman's comments in the source code indicate that
276 he began work in October 1977, continuing development over the next few
279 According to comments in the source code, the <STRONG>tset</STRONG> program was modified
280 in September 1980, to use logic copied from the 3BSD "reset" when it
281 was invoked as <STRONG>reset</STRONG>. This version appeared in 4.1cBSD, late in 1982.
283 Other developers (e.g., Keith Bostic and Jim Bloom) continued to modify
284 <STRONG>tset</STRONG> until 4.4BSD was released in 1993.
286 The <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> implementation was lightly adapted from the 4.4BSD sources
287 for a terminfo environment by Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>.
290 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-COMPATIBILITY">COMPATIBILITY</a></H2><PRE>
291 Neither IEEE Std 1003.1/The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7
292 (POSIX.1-2008) nor X/Open Curses Issue 7 documents <STRONG>tset</STRONG> or <STRONG>reset</STRONG>.
294 The AT&T <STRONG>tput</STRONG> utility (AIX, HPUX, Solaris) incorporated the terminal-
295 mode manipulation as well as termcap-based features such as resetting
296 tabstops from <STRONG>tset</STRONG> in BSD (4.1c), presumably with the intention of
297 making <STRONG>tset</STRONG> obsolete. However, each of those systems still provides
298 <STRONG>tset</STRONG>. In fact, the commonly-used <STRONG>reset</STRONG> utility is always an alias for
299 <STRONG>tset</STRONG>.
301 The <STRONG>tset</STRONG> utility provides for backward-compatibility with BSD
302 environments (under most modern UNIXes, <STRONG>/etc/inittab</STRONG> and <STRONG>getty(1)</STRONG> can
303 set <STRONG>TERM</STRONG> appropriately for each dial-up line; this obviates what was
304 <STRONG>tset</STRONG>'s most important use). This implementation behaves like 4.4BSD
305 <STRONG>tset</STRONG>, with a 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
311 message 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
317 letter) 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
323 documented or useful, but were retained as they appear to be in
324 widespread use. It is strongly recommended that any usage of these
325 three options be changed to use the <STRONG>-m</STRONG> option instead. The <STRONG>-a</STRONG>, <STRONG>-d</STRONG>, and
326 <STRONG>-p</STRONG> options 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.
343 However, 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
360 window is resized, those variables must be recomputed and reassigned.
361 To do this more easily, use the <STRONG>resize(1)</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(1)</STRONG> or <STRONG>csh(1)</STRONG>
371 TERM Denotes your terminal type. Each terminal type is distinct,
372 though many are similar.
375 may denote the location of a termcap database. If it is not an
376 absolute pathname, e.g., begins with a "/", <STRONG>tset</STRONG> removes the
377 variable from the environment before looking for the terminal
381 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-FILES">FILES</a></H2><PRE>
383 system port name to terminal type mapping database (BSD versions
387 terminal capability database
390 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></H2><PRE>
391 <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>,
392 <STRONG>ttys(5)</STRONG>, <STRONG>environ(7)</STRONG>
394 This describes <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> version 6.3 (patch 20220917).
398 <STRONG><A HREF="tset.1.html">tset(1)</A></STRONG>
402 <li><a href="#h2-NAME">NAME</a></li>
403 <li><a href="#h2-SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a></li>
404 <li><a href="#h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a>
406 <li><a href="#h3-tset---initialization">tset - initialization</a></li>
407 <li><a href="#h3-reset---reinitialization">reset - reinitialization</a></li>
410 <li><a href="#h2-OPTIONS">OPTIONS</a></li>
411 <li><a href="#h2-SETTING-THE-ENVIRONMENT">SETTING THE ENVIRONMENT</a></li>
412 <li><a href="#h2-TERMINAL-TYPE-MAPPING">TERMINAL TYPE MAPPING</a></li>
413 <li><a href="#h2-HISTORY">HISTORY</a></li>
414 <li><a href="#h2-COMPATIBILITY">COMPATIBILITY</a></li>
415 <li><a href="#h2-ENVIRONMENT">ENVIRONMENT</a></li>
416 <li><a href="#h2-FILES">FILES</a></li>
417 <li><a href="#h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></li>