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30 * @Id: term.7,v 1.46 2023/12/02 20:51:25 tom Exp @
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43 <H1 class="no-header">term 7 2023-12-02 ncurses 6.4 Miscellaneous</H1>
45 <STRONG><A HREF="term.7.html">term(7)</A></STRONG> Miscellaneous <STRONG><A HREF="term.7.html">term(7)</A></STRONG>
50 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-NAME">NAME</a></H2><PRE>
51 term - conventions for naming terminal types
54 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a></H2><PRE>
55 The environment variable <EM>TERM</EM> should normally contain the type name of
56 the terminal, console or display-device type you are using. This
57 information is critical for all screen-oriented programs, including
58 your editor and mailer.
60 A default <EM>TERM</EM> value will be set on a per-line basis by either
61 <STRONG>/etc/inittab</STRONG> (e.g., System-V-like Unices) or <STRONG>/etc/ttys</STRONG> (BSD Unices).
62 This will nearly always suffice for workstation and microcomputer
65 If you use a dialup line, the type of device attached to it may vary.
66 Older Unix systems pre-set a very dumb terminal type like "dumb" or
67 "dialup" on dialup lines. Newer ones may pre-set "vt100", reflecting
68 the prevalence of DEC VT100-compatible terminals and personal-computer
71 Modern telnets pass your <EM>TERM</EM> environment variable from the local side
72 to the remote one. There can be problems if the remote terminfo or
73 termcap entry for your type is not compatible with yours, but this
74 situation is rare and can almost always be avoided by explicitly
75 exporting "vt100" (assuming you are in fact using a VT100-superset
76 console, terminal, or terminal emulator).
78 In any case, you are free to override the system <EM>TERM</EM> setting to your
79 taste in your shell profile. The <STRONG><A HREF="tset.1.html">tset(1)</A></STRONG> utility may be of assistance;
80 you can give it a set of rules for deducing or requesting a terminal
81 type based on the tty device and baud rate.
83 Setting your own <EM>TERM</EM> value may also be useful if you have created a
84 custom entry incorporating options (such as visual bell or reverse-
85 video) which you wish to override the system default type for your
88 Terminal type descriptions are stored as files of capability data
89 underneath /usr/share/terminfo. To browse a list of all terminal names
90 recognized by the system, do
94 from your shell. These capability files are in a binary format
95 optimized for retrieval speed (unlike the old text-based <STRONG>termcap</STRONG> format
96 they replace); to examine an entry, you must use the <STRONG><A HREF="infocmp.1m.html">infocmp(1m)</A></STRONG>
97 command. Invoke it as follows:
99 infocmp <EM>entry</EM><STRONG>_</STRONG><EM>name</EM>
101 where <EM>entry</EM><STRONG>_</STRONG><EM>name</EM> is the name of the type you wish to examine (and the
102 name of its capability file the subdirectory of /usr/share/terminfo
103 named for its first letter). This command dumps a capability file in
104 the text format described by <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>.
106 The first line of a <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG> description gives the names by which
107 terminfo knows a terminal, separated by "|" (pipe-bar) characters with
108 the last name field terminated by a comma. The first name field is the
109 type's <EM>primary</EM> <EM>name</EM>, and is the one to use when setting <EM>TERM</EM>. The last
110 name field (if distinct from the first) is actually a description of
111 the terminal type (it may contain blanks; the others must be single
112 words). Name fields between the first and last (if present) are
113 aliases for the terminal, usually historical names retained for
116 There are some conventions for how to choose terminal primary names
117 that help keep them informative and unique. Here is a step-by-step
118 guide to naming terminals that also explains how to parse them:
120 First, choose a root name. The root will consist of a lower-case
121 letter followed by up to seven lower-case letters or digits. You need
122 to avoid using punctuation characters in root names, because they are
123 used and interpreted as filenames and shell meta-characters (such as !,
124 $, *, ?, etc.) embedded in them may cause odd and unhelpful behavior.
125 The slash (/), or any other character that may be interpreted by
126 anyone's file system (\, $, [, ]), is especially dangerous (terminfo is
127 platform-independent, and choosing names with special characters could
128 someday make life difficult for users of a future port). The dot (.)
129 character is relatively safe as long as there is at most one per root
130 name; some historical terminfo names use it.
132 The root name for a terminal or workstation console type should almost
133 always begin with a vendor prefix (such as <STRONG>hp</STRONG> for Hewlett-Packard, <STRONG>wy</STRONG>
134 for Wyse, or <STRONG>att</STRONG> for AT&T terminals), or a common name of the terminal
135 line (<STRONG>vt</STRONG> for the VT series of terminals from DEC, or <STRONG>sun</STRONG> for Sun
136 Microsystems workstation consoles, or <STRONG>regent</STRONG> for the ADDS Regent
137 series. You can list the terminfo tree to see what prefixes are
138 already in common use. The root name prefix should be followed when
139 appropriate by a model number; thus <STRONG>vt100</STRONG>, <STRONG>hp2621</STRONG>, <STRONG>wy50</STRONG>.
141 The root name for a PC-Unix console type should be the OS name, i.e.,
142 <STRONG>linux</STRONG>, <STRONG>bsdos</STRONG>, <STRONG>freebsd</STRONG>, <STRONG>netbsd</STRONG>. It should <EM>not</EM> be <STRONG>console</STRONG> or any other
143 generic that might cause confusion in a multi-platform environment! If
144 a model number follows, it should indicate either the OS release level
145 or the console driver release level.
147 The root name for a terminal emulator (assuming it does not fit one of
148 the standard ANSI or vt100 types) should be the program name or a
149 readily recognizable abbreviation of it (i.e., <STRONG>versaterm</STRONG>, <STRONG>ctrm</STRONG>).
151 Following the root name, you may add any reasonable number of hyphen-
152 separated feature suffixes.
154 2p Has two pages of memory. Likewise 4p, 8p, etc.
156 mc Magic-cookie. Some terminals (notably older Wyses) can only
157 support one attribute without magic-cookie lossage. Their base
158 entry is usually paired with another that has this suffix and uses
159 magic cookies to support multiple attributes.
161 -am Enable auto-margin (right-margin wraparound).
163 -m Mono mode - suppress color support.
165 -na No arrow keys - termcap ignores arrow keys which are actually
166 there on the terminal, so the user can use the arrow keys locally.
168 -nam No auto-margin - suppress am capability.
170 -nl No labels - suppress soft labels.
172 -nsl No status line - suppress status line.
174 -pp Has a printer port which is used.
176 -rv Terminal in reverse video mode (black on white).
178 -s Enable status line.
180 -vb Use visible bell (flash) rather than beep.
182 -w Wide; terminal is in 132-column mode.
184 Conventionally, if your terminal type is a variant intended to specify
185 a line height, that suffix should go first. So, for a hypothetical
186 FuBarCo model 2317 terminal in 30-line mode with reverse video, best
187 form would be <STRONG>fubar-30-rv</STRONG> (rather than, say, "fubar-rv-30").
189 Terminal types that are written not as standalone entries, but rather
190 as components to be plugged into other entries via <STRONG>use</STRONG> capabilities,
191 are distinguished by using embedded plus signs rather than dashes.
193 Commands which use a terminal type to control display often accept a -T
194 option that accepts a terminal name argument. Such programs should
195 fall back on the <EM>TERM</EM> environment variable when no -T option is
199 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-FILES">FILES</a></H2><PRE>
200 <EM>/usr/share/terminfo</EM>
201 compiled terminal description database
203 <EM>/etc/inittab</EM>
204 tty line initialization (AT&T-like Unices)
207 tty line initialization (BSD-like Unices)
210 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-PORTABILITY">PORTABILITY</a></H2><PRE>
211 For maximum compatibility with older System V Unices, names and aliases
212 should be unique within the first 14 characters.
215 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></H2><PRE>
216 <STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">curses(3x)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="term.5.html">term(5)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>
220 ncurses 6.4 2023-12-02 <STRONG><A HREF="term.7.html">term(7)</A></STRONG>
224 <li><a href="#h2-NAME">NAME</a></li>
225 <li><a href="#h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a></li>
226 <li><a href="#h2-FILES">FILES</a></li>
227 <li><a href="#h2-PORTABILITY">PORTABILITY</a></li>
228 <li><a href="#h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></li>