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42 <H1 class="no-header">tset 1 2023-12-23 ncurses 6.4 User commands</H1>
44 <STRONG><A HREF="tset.1.html">tset(1)</A></STRONG> User commands <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> - initialize or reset terminal state
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>
56 <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>
60 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a></H2><PRE>
62 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-tset----initialization"><EM>tset</EM> -- initialization</a></H3><PRE>
63 This program initializes terminals.
65 First, <STRONG>tset</STRONG> retrieves the current terminal mode settings for your
66 terminal. It does this by successively testing
68 <STRONG>o</STRONG> the standard error,
70 <STRONG>o</STRONG> standard output,
72 <STRONG>o</STRONG> standard input and
74 <STRONG>o</STRONG> ultimately "/dev/tty"
76 to obtain terminal settings. Having retrieved these settings, <STRONG>tset</STRONG>
77 remembers which file descriptor to use when updating settings.
79 Next, <STRONG>tset</STRONG> determines the type of terminal that you are using. This
80 determination is done as follows, using the first terminal type found.
82 1. The <STRONG>terminal</STRONG> argument specified on the command line.
84 2. The value of the <EM>TERM</EM> environment variable.
86 3. (BSD systems only.) The terminal type associated with the standard
87 error output device in the <EM>/etc/ttys</EM> file. (On System V hosts and
88 systems using that convention, <STRONG>getty(8)</STRONG> does this job by setting <EM>TERM</EM>
89 according to the type passed to it by <EM>/etc/inittab</EM>.)
91 4. The default terminal type, "unknown", is not suitable for curses
94 If the terminal type was not specified on the command-line, the <STRONG>-m</STRONG>
95 option mappings are then applied; see subsection "Terminal Type
96 Mapping". Then, if the terminal type begins with a question mark
97 ("?"), the user is prompted for confirmation of the terminal type. An
98 empty response confirms the type, or, another type can be entered to
99 specify a new type. Once the terminal type has been determined, the
100 terminal description for the terminal is retrieved. If no terminal
101 description is found for the type, the user is prompted for another
104 Once the terminal description is retrieved,
106 <STRONG>o</STRONG> if the "<STRONG>-w</STRONG>" option is enabled, <STRONG>tset</STRONG> may update the terminal's
109 If the window size cannot be obtained from the operating system,
110 but the terminal description (or environment, e.g., <EM>LINES</EM> and
111 <EM>COLUMNS</EM> variables specify this), use this to set the operating
112 system's notion of the window size.
114 <STRONG>o</STRONG> if the "<STRONG>-c</STRONG>" option is enabled, the backspace, interrupt and line
115 kill characters (among many other things) are set
117 <STRONG>o</STRONG> unless the "<STRONG>-I</STRONG>" option is enabled, the terminal and tab
118 <EM>initialization</EM> strings are sent to the standard error output, and
119 <STRONG>tset</STRONG> waits one second (in case a hardware reset was issued).
121 <STRONG>o</STRONG> Finally, if the erase, interrupt and line kill characters have
122 changed, or are not set to their default values, their values are
123 displayed to the standard error output.
126 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-reset----reinitialization"><EM>reset</EM> -- reinitialization</a></H3><PRE>
127 When invoked as <STRONG>reset</STRONG>, <STRONG>tset</STRONG> sets the terminal modes to "sane" values:
129 <STRONG>o</STRONG> sets cooked and echo modes,
131 <STRONG>o</STRONG> turns off cbreak and raw modes,
133 <STRONG>o</STRONG> turns on newline translation and
135 <STRONG>o</STRONG> resets any unset special characters to their default values
137 before doing the terminal initialization described above. Also, rather
138 than using the terminal <EM>initialization</EM> strings, it uses the terminal
139 <EM>reset</EM> strings.
141 The <STRONG>reset</STRONG> command is useful after a program dies leaving a terminal in
144 <STRONG>o</STRONG> you may have to type
146 <EM><LF></EM><STRONG>reset</STRONG><EM><LF></EM>
148 (the line-feed character is normally control-J) to get the terminal
149 to work, as carriage-return may no longer work in the abnormal
152 <STRONG>o</STRONG> Also, the terminal will often not echo the command.
155 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-Setting-the-Environment">Setting the Environment</a></H3><PRE>
156 It is often desirable to enter the terminal type and information about
157 the terminal's capabilities into the shell's environment. This is done
158 using the <STRONG>-s</STRONG> option.
160 When the <STRONG>-s</STRONG> option is specified, the commands to enter the information
161 into the shell's environment are written to the standard output. If
162 the <EM>SHELL</EM> environment variable ends in "csh", the commands are for
163 <STRONG>csh(1)</STRONG>, otherwise, they are for <STRONG>sh(1)</STRONG>. The <EM>csh</EM> commands set and unset
164 the shell variable <STRONG>noglob</STRONG>, leaving it unset. The following line in the
165 <STRONG>.login</STRONG> or <STRONG>.profile</STRONG> files will initialize the environment correctly:
167 eval `tset -s options ... `
170 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-Terminal-Type-Mapping">Terminal Type Mapping</a></H3><PRE>
171 When the terminal is not hardwired into the system (or the current
172 system information is incorrect) the terminal type derived from the
173 <EM>/etc/ttys</EM> file or the <EM>TERM</EM> environment variable is often something
174 generic like <STRONG>network</STRONG>, <STRONG>dialup</STRONG>, or <STRONG>unknown</STRONG>. When <STRONG>tset</STRONG> is used in a
175 startup script it is often desirable to provide information about the
176 type of terminal used on such ports.
178 The <STRONG>-m</STRONG> options maps from some set of conditions to a terminal type,
179 that is, to tell <STRONG>tset</STRONG> "If I'm on this port at a particular speed, guess
180 that I'm on that kind of terminal".
182 The argument to the <STRONG>-m</STRONG> option consists of an optional port type, an
183 optional operator, an optional baud rate specification, an optional
184 colon (":") character and a terminal type. The port type is a string
185 (delimited by either the operator or the colon character). The
186 operator may be any combination of ">", "<", "@", and "!"; ">" means
187 greater than, "<" means less than, "@" means equal to and "!" inverts
188 the sense of the test. The baud rate is specified as a number and is
189 compared with the speed of the standard error output (which should be
190 the control terminal). The terminal type is a string.
192 If the terminal type is not specified on the command line, the <STRONG>-m</STRONG>
193 mappings are applied to the terminal type. If the port type and baud
194 rate match the mapping, the terminal type specified in the mapping
195 replaces the current type. If more than one mapping is specified, the
196 first applicable mapping is used.
198 For example, consider the following mapping: <STRONG>dialup>9600:vt100</STRONG>. The
199 port type is dialup , the operator is >, the baud rate specification is
200 9600, and the terminal type is vt100. The result of this mapping is to
201 specify that if the terminal type is <STRONG>dialup</STRONG>, and the baud rate is
202 greater than 9600 baud, a terminal type of <STRONG>vt100</STRONG> will be used.
204 If no baud rate is specified, the terminal type will match any baud
205 rate. If no port type is specified, the terminal type will match any
206 port type. For example, <STRONG>-m</STRONG> <STRONG>dialup:vt100</STRONG> <STRONG>-m</STRONG> <STRONG>:?xterm</STRONG> will cause any
207 dialup port, regardless of baud rate, to match the terminal type vt100,
208 and any non-dialup port type to match the terminal type ?xterm. Note,
209 because of the leading question mark, the user will be queried on a
210 default port as to whether they are actually using an xterm terminal.
212 No whitespace characters are permitted in the <STRONG>-m</STRONG> option argument.
213 Also, to avoid problems with meta-characters, it is suggested that the
214 entire <STRONG>-m</STRONG> option argument be placed within single quote characters, and
215 that <EM>csh</EM> users insert a backslash character ("\") before any
216 exclamation marks ("!").
219 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-OPTIONS">OPTIONS</a></H2><PRE>
220 The options are as follows:
222 <STRONG>-c</STRONG> Set control characters and modes.
224 <STRONG>-e</STRONG> <EM>ch</EM>
225 Set the erase character to <EM>ch</EM>.
227 <STRONG>-I</STRONG> Do not send the terminal or tab initialization strings to the
230 <STRONG>-i</STRONG> <EM>ch</EM>
231 Set the interrupt character to <EM>ch</EM>.
233 <STRONG>-k</STRONG> <EM>ch</EM>
234 Set the line kill character to <EM>ch</EM>.
236 <STRONG>-m</STRONG> <EM>mapping</EM>
237 Specify a mapping from a port type to a terminal; see subsection
238 "Terminal Type Mapping".
240 <STRONG>-Q</STRONG> Do not display any values for the erase, interrupt and line kill
241 characters. Normally <STRONG>tset</STRONG> displays the values for control
242 characters which differ from the system's default values.
244 <STRONG>-q</STRONG> The terminal type is displayed to the standard output, and the
245 terminal is not initialized in any way. The option "-" by itself
246 is equivalent but archaic.
248 <STRONG>-r</STRONG> Print the terminal type to the standard error output.
250 <STRONG>-s</STRONG> Print the sequence of shell commands to initialize the environment
251 variable <EM>TERM</EM> to the standard output; see subsection "Setting the
254 <STRONG>-V</STRONG> reports the version of <EM>ncurses</EM> which was used in this program, and
257 <STRONG>-w</STRONG> Resize the window to match the size deduced via <STRONG><A HREF="curs_terminfo.3x.html">setupterm(3x)</A></STRONG>.
258 Normally this has no effect, unless <STRONG>setupterm</STRONG> is not able to
259 detect the window size.
261 The arguments for the <STRONG>-e</STRONG>, <STRONG>-i</STRONG>, and <STRONG>-k</STRONG> options may either be entered as
262 actual characters or by using the "hat" notation, i.e., control-h may
263 be specified as "^H" or "^h".
265 If neither <STRONG>-c</STRONG> or <STRONG>-w</STRONG> is given, both options are assumed.
268 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-ENVIRONMENT">ENVIRONMENT</a></H2><PRE>
269 The <STRONG>tset</STRONG> command uses these environment variables:
272 tells <STRONG>tset</STRONG> whether to initialize <EM>TERM</EM> using <STRONG>sh(1)</STRONG> or <STRONG>csh(1)</STRONG>
275 <EM>TERM</EM> Denotes your terminal type. Each terminal type is distinct,
276 though many are similar.
279 may denote the location of a termcap database. If it is not an
280 absolute pathname, e.g., begins with a "/", <STRONG>tset</STRONG> removes the
281 variable from the environment before looking for the terminal
285 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-FILES">FILES</a></H2><PRE>
287 system port name to terminal type mapping database (BSD versions
290 <EM>/usr/share/terminfo</EM>
291 compiled terminal description database directory
294 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-PORTABILITY">PORTABILITY</a></H2><PRE>
295 Neither IEEE Std 1003.1/The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7
296 (POSIX.1-2008) nor X/Open Curses Issue 7 documents <STRONG>tset</STRONG> or <STRONG>reset</STRONG>.
298 The AT&T <STRONG>tput</STRONG> utility (AIX, HP-UX, Solaris) incorporated the terminal-
299 mode manipulation as well as termcap-based features such as resetting
300 tabstops from <STRONG>tset</STRONG> in BSD (4.1c), presumably with the intention of
301 making <STRONG>tset</STRONG> obsolete. However, each of those systems still provides
302 <STRONG>tset</STRONG>. In fact, the commonly-used <STRONG>reset</STRONG> utility is always an alias for
303 <STRONG>tset</STRONG>.
305 The <STRONG>tset</STRONG> utility provides backward compatibility with BSD environments;
306 under most modern Unices, <EM>/etc/inittab</EM> and <STRONG>getty(8)</STRONG> can set <EM>TERM</EM>
307 appropriately for each dial-up line, obviating what was <STRONG>tset</STRONG>'s most
308 important use. This implementation behaves like 4.4BSD <STRONG>tset</STRONG>, with a
309 few exceptions we shall consider now.
311 A few options are different because the <EM>TERMCAP</EM> variable is no longer
312 supported under terminfo-based <EM>ncurses</EM>:
314 <STRONG>o</STRONG> The <STRONG>-S</STRONG> option of BSD <STRONG>tset</STRONG> no longer works; it prints an error
315 message to the standard error and dies.
317 <STRONG>o</STRONG> The <STRONG>-s</STRONG> option only sets <EM>TERM</EM>, not <EM>TERMCAP</EM>.
319 There was an undocumented 4.4BSD feature that invoking <STRONG>tset</STRONG> via a link
320 named "TSET" (or via any other name beginning with an upper-case
321 letter) set the terminal to use upper-case only. This feature has been
324 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
325 4.4BSD. None of them were documented in 4.3BSD and all are of limited
326 utility at best. The <STRONG>-a</STRONG>, <STRONG>-d</STRONG>, and <STRONG>-p</STRONG> options are similarly not
327 documented or useful, but were retained as they appear to be in
328 widespread use. It is strongly recommended that any usage of these
329 three options be changed to use the <STRONG>-m</STRONG> option instead. The <STRONG>-a</STRONG>, <STRONG>-d</STRONG>, and
330 <STRONG>-p</STRONG> options are therefore omitted from the usage summary above.
332 Very old systems, e.g., 3BSD, used a different terminal driver which
333 was replaced in 4BSD in the early 1980s. To accommodate these older
334 systems, the 4BSD <STRONG>tset</STRONG> provided a <STRONG>-n</STRONG> option to specify that the new
335 terminal driver should be used. This implementation does not provide
338 It is still permissible to specify the <STRONG>-e</STRONG>, <STRONG>-i</STRONG>, and <STRONG>-k</STRONG> options without
339 arguments, although it is strongly recommended that such usage be fixed
340 to explicitly specify the character.
342 As of 4.4BSD, executing <STRONG>tset</STRONG> as <STRONG>reset</STRONG> no longer implies the <STRONG>-Q</STRONG> option.
343 Also, the interaction between the - option and the <EM>terminal</EM> argument in
344 some historic implementations of <STRONG>tset</STRONG> has been removed.
346 The <STRONG>-c</STRONG> and <STRONG>-w</STRONG> options are not found in earlier implementations.
347 However, a different window size-change feature was provided in 4.4BSD.
349 <STRONG>o</STRONG> In 4.4BSD, <STRONG>tset</STRONG> uses the window size from the termcap description
350 to set the window size if <STRONG>tset</STRONG> is not able to obtain the window
351 size from the operating system.
353 <STRONG>o</STRONG> In <EM>ncurses</EM>, <STRONG>tset</STRONG> obtains the window size using <STRONG>setupterm</STRONG>, which may
354 be from the operating system, the <EM>LINES</EM> and <EM>COLUMNS</EM> environment
355 variables or the terminal description.
357 Obtaining the window size from the terminal description is common to
358 both implementations, but considered obsolescent. Its only practical
359 use is for hardware terminals. Generally speaking, a window size would
360 be unset only if there were some problem obtaining the value from the
361 operating system (and <STRONG>setupterm</STRONG> would still fail). For that reason,
362 the <EM>LINES</EM> and <EM>COLUMNS</EM> environment variables may be useful for working
363 around window-size problems. Those have the drawback that if the
364 window is resized, those variables must be recomputed and reassigned.
365 To do this more easily, use the <STRONG>resize(1)</STRONG> program.
368 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-HISTORY">HISTORY</a></H2><PRE>
369 A <STRONG>reset</STRONG> command written by Kurt Shoens appeared in 1BSD (March 1978).
370 It set the <EM>erase</EM> and <EM>kill</EM> characters to <STRONG>^H</STRONG> (backspace) and <STRONG>@</STRONG>
371 respectively. Mark Horton improved this <STRONG>reset</STRONG> in 3BSD (October 1979),
372 adding <EM>intr</EM>, <EM>quit</EM>, <EM>start</EM>/<EM>stop</EM>, and <EM>eof</EM> characters as well as changing
373 the program to avoid modifying any user settings. That version of
374 <STRONG>reset</STRONG> did not use <EM>termcap</EM>.
376 Eric Allman wrote a distinct <STRONG>tset</STRONG> command for 1BSD, using a forerunner
377 of <EM>termcap</EM> called <EM>ttycap</EM>. Allman's comments in the source code
378 indicate that he began work in October 1977, continuing development
379 over the next few years. By late 1979, it had migrated to <EM>termcap</EM> and
380 handled the <EM>TERMCAP</EM> variable. Later comments indicate that <STRONG>tset</STRONG> was
381 modified in September 1980 to use logic copied from the 3BSD "reset"
382 program when it was invoked as <STRONG>reset</STRONG>. This version appeared in
383 4.1cBSD, late in 1982. Other developers such as Keith Bostic and Jim
384 Bloom continued to modify <STRONG>tset</STRONG> until 4.4BSD was released in 1993.
386 The <EM>ncurses</EM> implementation was lightly adapted from the 4.4BSD sources
387 to use the <EM>terminfo</EM> API by Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>.
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>
396 ncurses 6.4 2023-12-23 <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>
406 <li><a href="#h3-Setting-the-Environment">Setting the Environment</a></li>
407 <li><a href="#h3-Terminal-Type-Mapping">Terminal Type Mapping</a></li>
410 <li><a href="#h2-OPTIONS">OPTIONS</a></li>
411 <li><a href="#h2-ENVIRONMENT">ENVIRONMENT</a></li>
412 <li><a href="#h2-FILES">FILES</a></li>
413 <li><a href="#h2-PORTABILITY">PORTABILITY</a></li>
414 <li><a href="#h2-HISTORY">HISTORY</a></li>
415 <li><a href="#h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></li>