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30 * @Id: tset.1,v 1.58 2021/09/18 21:21:55 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, <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
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</STRONG>. Note, the <STRONG>csh</STRONG> commands set and unset
210 the shell variable <STRONG>noglob</STRONG>, leaving it unset. The following line in the
211 <STRONG>.login</STRONG> or <STRONG>.profile</STRONG> files will initialize the environment correctly:
213 eval `tset -s options ... `
216 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-TERMINAL-TYPE-MAPPING">TERMINAL TYPE MAPPING</a></H2><PRE>
217 When the terminal is not hardwired into the system (or the current
218 system information is incorrect) the terminal type derived from the
219 <EM>/etc/ttys</EM> file or the <STRONG>TERM</STRONG> environmental variable is often something
220 generic like <STRONG>network</STRONG>, <STRONG>dialup</STRONG>, or <STRONG>unknown</STRONG>. When <STRONG>tset</STRONG> is used in a
221 startup script it is often desirable to provide information about the
222 type of terminal used on such ports.
224 The <STRONG>-m</STRONG> options maps from some set of conditions to a terminal type,
225 that is, to tell <STRONG>tset</STRONG> "If I'm on this port at a particular speed, guess
226 that I'm on that kind of terminal".
228 The argument to the <STRONG>-m</STRONG> option consists of an optional port type, an
229 optional operator, an optional baud rate specification, an optional
230 colon (":") character and a terminal type. The port type is a string
231 (delimited by either the operator or the colon character). The
232 operator may be any combination of ">", "<", "@", and "!"; ">" means
233 greater than, "<" means less than, "@" means equal to and "!" inverts
234 the sense of the test. The baud rate is specified as a number and is
235 compared with the speed of the standard error output (which should be
236 the control terminal). The terminal type is a string.
238 If the terminal type is not specified on the command line, the <STRONG>-m</STRONG>
239 mappings are applied to the terminal type. If the port type and baud
240 rate match the mapping, the terminal type specified in the mapping
241 replaces the current type. If more than one mapping is specified, the
242 first applicable mapping is used.
244 For example, consider the following mapping: <STRONG>dialup>9600:vt100</STRONG>. The
245 port type is dialup , the operator is >, the baud rate specification is
246 9600, and the terminal type is vt100. The result of this mapping is to
247 specify that if the terminal type is <STRONG>dialup</STRONG>, and the baud rate is
248 greater than 9600 baud, a terminal type of <STRONG>vt100</STRONG> will be used.
250 If no baud rate is specified, the terminal type will match any baud
251 rate. If no port type is specified, the terminal type will match any
252 port type. For example, <STRONG>-m</STRONG> <STRONG>dialup:vt100</STRONG> <STRONG>-m</STRONG> <STRONG>:?xterm</STRONG> will cause any
253 dialup port, regardless of baud rate, to match the terminal type vt100,
254 and any non-dialup port type to match the terminal type ?xterm. Note,
255 because of the leading question mark, the user will be queried on a
256 default port as to whether they are actually using an xterm terminal.
258 No whitespace characters are permitted in the <STRONG>-m</STRONG> option argument.
259 Also, to avoid problems with meta-characters, it is suggested that the
260 entire <STRONG>-m</STRONG> option argument be placed within single quote characters, and
261 that <STRONG>csh</STRONG> users insert a backslash character ("\") before any
262 exclamation marks ("!").
265 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-HISTORY">HISTORY</a></H2><PRE>
266 A <STRONG>reset</STRONG> command appeared in 1BSD (March 1978), written by Kurt Shoens.
267 This program set the <EM>erase</EM> and <EM>kill</EM> characters to <STRONG>^H</STRONG> (backspace) and <STRONG>@</STRONG>
268 respectively. Mark Horton improved that in 3BSD (October 1979), adding
269 <EM>intr</EM>, <EM>quit</EM>, <EM>start</EM>/<EM>stop</EM> and <EM>eof</EM> characters as well as changing the
270 program to avoid modifying any user settings. That version of <STRONG>reset</STRONG>
271 did not use the termcap database.
273 A separate <STRONG>tset</STRONG> command was provided in 1BSD by Eric Allman, using the
274 termcap database. Allman's comments in the source code indicate that
275 he began work in October 1977, continuing development over the next few
278 According to comments in the source code, the <STRONG>tset</STRONG> program was modified
279 in September 1980, to use logic copied from the 3BSD "reset" when it
280 was invoked as <STRONG>reset</STRONG>. This version appeared in 4.1cBSD, late in 1982.
282 Other developers (e.g., Keith Bostic and Jim Bloom) continued to modify
283 <STRONG>tset</STRONG> until 4.4BSD was released in 1993.
285 The <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> implementation was lightly adapted from the 4.4BSD sources
286 for a terminfo environment by Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>.
289 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-COMPATIBILITY">COMPATIBILITY</a></H2><PRE>
290 Neither IEEE Std 1003.1/The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7
291 (POSIX.1-2008) nor X/Open Curses Issue 7 documents <STRONG>tset</STRONG> or <STRONG>reset</STRONG>.
293 The AT&T <STRONG>tput</STRONG> utility (AIX, HPUX, Solaris) incorporated the terminal-
294 mode manipulation as well as termcap-based features such as resetting
295 tabstops from <STRONG>tset</STRONG> in BSD (4.1c), presumably with the intention of
296 making <STRONG>tset</STRONG> obsolete. However, each of those systems still provides
297 <STRONG>tset</STRONG>. In fact, the commonly-used <STRONG>reset</STRONG> utility is always an alias for
298 <STRONG>tset</STRONG>.
300 The <STRONG>tset</STRONG> utility provides for backward-compatibility with BSD
301 environments (under most modern UNIXes, <STRONG>/etc/inittab</STRONG> and <STRONG>getty(1)</STRONG> can
302 set <STRONG>TERM</STRONG> appropriately for each dial-up line; this obviates what was
303 <STRONG>tset</STRONG>'s most important use). This implementation behaves like 4.4BSD
304 <STRONG>tset</STRONG>, with a few exceptions specified here.
306 A few options are different because the <STRONG>TERMCAP</STRONG> variable is no longer
307 supported under terminfo-based <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG>:
309 <STRONG>o</STRONG> The <STRONG>-S</STRONG> option of BSD <STRONG>tset</STRONG> no longer works; it prints an error
310 message to the standard error and dies.
312 <STRONG>o</STRONG> The <STRONG>-s</STRONG> option only sets <STRONG>TERM</STRONG>, not <STRONG>TERMCAP</STRONG>.
314 There was an undocumented 4.4BSD feature that invoking <STRONG>tset</STRONG> via a link
315 named "TSET" (or via any other name beginning with an upper-case
316 letter) set the terminal to use upper-case only. This feature has been
319 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
320 4.4BSD. None of them were documented in 4.3BSD and all are of limited
321 utility at best. The <STRONG>-a</STRONG>, <STRONG>-d</STRONG>, and <STRONG>-p</STRONG> options are similarly not
322 documented or useful, but were retained as they appear to be in
323 widespread use. It is strongly recommended that any usage of these
324 three options be changed to use the <STRONG>-m</STRONG> option instead. The <STRONG>-a</STRONG>, <STRONG>-d</STRONG>, and
325 <STRONG>-p</STRONG> options are therefore omitted from the usage summary above.
327 Very old systems, e.g., 3BSD, used a different terminal driver which
328 was replaced in 4BSD in the early 1980s. To accommodate these older
329 systems, the 4BSD <STRONG>tset</STRONG> provided a <STRONG>-n</STRONG> option to specify that the new
330 terminal driver should be used. This implementation does not provide
333 It is still permissible to specify the <STRONG>-e</STRONG>, <STRONG>-i</STRONG>, and <STRONG>-k</STRONG> options without
334 arguments, although it is strongly recommended that such usage be fixed
335 to explicitly specify the character.
337 As of 4.4BSD, executing <STRONG>tset</STRONG> as <STRONG>reset</STRONG> no longer implies the <STRONG>-Q</STRONG> option.
338 Also, the interaction between the - option and the <EM>terminal</EM> argument in
339 some historic implementations of <STRONG>tset</STRONG> has been removed.
341 The <STRONG>-c</STRONG> and <STRONG>-w</STRONG> options are not found in earlier implementations.
342 However, a different window size-change feature was provided in 4.4BSD.
344 <STRONG>o</STRONG> In 4.4BSD, <STRONG>tset</STRONG> uses the window size from the termcap description
345 to set the window size if <STRONG>tset</STRONG> is not able to obtain the window
346 size from the operating system.
348 <STRONG>o</STRONG> In ncurses, <STRONG>tset</STRONG> obtains the window size using <STRONG>setupterm</STRONG>, which may
349 be from the operating system, the <STRONG>LINES</STRONG> and <STRONG>COLUMNS</STRONG> environment
350 variables or the terminal description.
352 Obtaining the window size from the terminal description is common to
353 both implementations, but considered obsolescent. Its only practical
354 use is for hardware terminals. Generally speaking, a window size would
355 be unset only if there were some problem obtaining the value from the
356 operating system (and <STRONG>setupterm</STRONG> would still fail). For that reason,
357 the <STRONG>LINES</STRONG> and <STRONG>COLUMNS</STRONG> environment variables may be useful for working
358 around window-size problems. Those have the drawback that if the
359 window is resized, those variables must be recomputed and reassigned.
360 To do this more easily, use the <STRONG><A HREF="resize.1.html">resize(1)</A></STRONG> program.
363 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-ENVIRONMENT">ENVIRONMENT</a></H2><PRE>
364 The <STRONG>tset</STRONG> command uses these environment variables:
367 tells <STRONG>tset</STRONG> whether to initialize <STRONG>TERM</STRONG> using <STRONG>sh</STRONG> or <STRONG>csh</STRONG> syntax.
369 TERM Denotes your terminal type. Each terminal type is distinct,
370 though many are similar.
373 may denote the location of a termcap database. If it is not an
374 absolute pathname, e.g., begins with a "/", <STRONG>tset</STRONG> removes the
375 variable from the environment before looking for the terminal
379 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-FILES">FILES</a></H2><PRE>
381 system port name to terminal type mapping database (BSD versions
385 terminal capability database
388 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></H2><PRE>
389 <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>,
390 <STRONG>ttys(5)</STRONG>, <STRONG>environ(7)</STRONG>
392 This describes <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> version 6.2 (patch 20211016).
396 <STRONG><A HREF="tset.1.html">tset(1)</A></STRONG>
400 <li><a href="#h2-NAME">NAME</a></li>
401 <li><a href="#h2-SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a></li>
402 <li><a href="#h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a>
404 <li><a href="#h3-tset---initialization">tset - initialization</a></li>
405 <li><a href="#h3-reset---reinitialization">reset - reinitialization</a></li>
408 <li><a href="#h2-OPTIONS">OPTIONS</a></li>
409 <li><a href="#h2-SETTING-THE-ENVIRONMENT">SETTING THE ENVIRONMENT</a></li>
410 <li><a href="#h2-TERMINAL-TYPE-MAPPING">TERMINAL TYPE MAPPING</a></li>
411 <li><a href="#h2-HISTORY">HISTORY</a></li>
412 <li><a href="#h2-COMPATIBILITY">COMPATIBILITY</a></li>
413 <li><a href="#h2-ENVIRONMENT">ENVIRONMENT</a></li>
414 <li><a href="#h2-FILES">FILES</a></li>
415 <li><a href="#h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></li>