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30 * @Id: tset.1,v 1.78 2023/12/16 20:32:22 tom Exp @
31 * https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=1BSD/s6/reset.c
32 * https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=3BSD/usr/src/cmd/\
34 * https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=1BSD/s6/tset.c
35 * https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=1BSD/man7/ttycap.7
36 * https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=3BSD/usr/src/cmd/\
38 * https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=2.9BSD/usr/src/ucb/\
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51 <H1 class="no-header">tset 1 2023-12-16 ncurses 6.4 User commands</H1>
53 <STRONG><A HREF="tset.1.html">tset(1)</A></STRONG> User commands <STRONG><A HREF="tset.1.html">tset(1)</A></STRONG>
58 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-NAME">NAME</a></H2><PRE>
59 <STRONG>tset</STRONG>, <STRONG>reset</STRONG> - initialize or reset terminal state
62 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a></H2><PRE>
63 <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>
65 <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>
69 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a></H2><PRE>
71 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-tset---initialization">tset - initialization</a></H3><PRE>
72 This program initializes terminals.
74 First, <STRONG>tset</STRONG> retrieves the current terminal mode settings for your
75 terminal. It does this by successively testing
77 <STRONG>o</STRONG> the standard error,
79 <STRONG>o</STRONG> standard output,
81 <STRONG>o</STRONG> standard input and
83 <STRONG>o</STRONG> ultimately "/dev/tty"
85 to obtain terminal settings. Having retrieved these settings, <STRONG>tset</STRONG>
86 remembers which file descriptor to use when updating settings.
88 Next, <STRONG>tset</STRONG> determines the type of terminal that you are using. This
89 determination is done as follows, using the first terminal type found.
91 1. The <STRONG>terminal</STRONG> argument specified on the command line.
93 2. The value of the <EM>TERM</EM> environmental variable.
95 3. (BSD systems only.) The terminal type associated with the standard
96 error output device in the <EM>/etc/ttys</EM> file. (On System V hosts and
97 systems using that convention, <STRONG>getty(1)</STRONG> does this job by setting <EM>TERM</EM>
98 according to the type passed to it by <EM>/etc/inittab</EM>.)
100 4. The default terminal type, "unknown", is not suitable for curses
103 If the terminal type was not specified on the command-line, the <STRONG>-m</STRONG>
104 option mappings are then applied; see subsection "Terminal Type
105 Mapping". Then, if the terminal type begins with a question mark
106 ("?"), the user is prompted for confirmation of the terminal type. An
107 empty response confirms the type, or, another type can be entered to
108 specify a new type. Once the terminal type has been determined, the
109 terminal description for the terminal is retrieved. If no terminal
110 description is found for the type, the user is prompted for another
113 Once the terminal description is retrieved,
115 <STRONG>o</STRONG> if the "<STRONG>-w</STRONG>" option is enabled, <STRONG>tset</STRONG> may update the terminal's
118 If the window size cannot be obtained from the operating system,
119 but the terminal description (or environment, e.g., <EM>LINES</EM> and
120 <EM>COLUMNS</EM> variables specify this), use this to set the operating
121 system's notion of the window size.
123 <STRONG>o</STRONG> if the "<STRONG>-c</STRONG>" option is enabled, the backspace, interrupt and line
124 kill characters (among many other things) are set
126 <STRONG>o</STRONG> unless the "<STRONG>-I</STRONG>" option is enabled, the terminal and tab
127 <EM>initialization</EM> strings are sent to the standard error output, and
128 <STRONG>tset</STRONG> waits one second (in case a hardware reset was issued).
130 <STRONG>o</STRONG> Finally, if the erase, interrupt and line kill characters have
131 changed, or are not set to their default values, their values are
132 displayed to the standard error output.
135 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-reset---reinitialization">reset - reinitialization</a></H3><PRE>
136 When invoked as <STRONG>reset</STRONG>, <STRONG>tset</STRONG> sets the terminal modes to "sane" values:
138 <STRONG>o</STRONG> sets cooked and echo modes,
140 <STRONG>o</STRONG> turns off cbreak and raw modes,
142 <STRONG>o</STRONG> turns on newline translation and
144 <STRONG>o</STRONG> resets any unset special characters to their default values
146 before doing the terminal initialization described above. Also, rather
147 than using the terminal <EM>initialization</EM> strings, it uses the terminal
148 <EM>reset</EM> strings.
150 The <STRONG>reset</STRONG> command is useful after a program dies leaving a terminal in
153 <STRONG>o</STRONG> you may have to type
155 <EM><LF></EM><STRONG>reset</STRONG><EM><LF></EM>
157 (the line-feed character is normally control-J) to get the terminal
158 to work, as carriage-return may no longer work in the abnormal
161 <STRONG>o</STRONG> Also, the terminal will often not echo the command.
164 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-Setting-the-Environment">Setting the Environment</a></H3><PRE>
165 It is often desirable to enter the terminal type and information about
166 the terminal's capabilities into the shell's environment. This is done
167 using the <STRONG>-s</STRONG> option.
169 When the <STRONG>-s</STRONG> option is specified, the commands to enter the information
170 into the shell's environment are written to the standard output. If
171 the <EM>SHELL</EM> environmental variable ends in "csh", the commands are for
172 <STRONG>csh</STRONG>, otherwise, they are for <STRONG>sh(1)</STRONG>. Note, the <STRONG>csh</STRONG> commands set and
173 unset the shell variable <STRONG>noglob</STRONG>, leaving it unset. The following line
174 in the <STRONG>.login</STRONG> or <STRONG>.profile</STRONG> files will initialize the environment
177 eval `tset -s options ... `
180 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-Terminal-Type-Mapping">Terminal Type Mapping</a></H3><PRE>
181 When the terminal is not hardwired into the system (or the current
182 system information is incorrect) the terminal type derived from the
183 <EM>/etc/ttys</EM> file or the <EM>TERM</EM> environmental variable is often something
184 generic like <STRONG>network</STRONG>, <STRONG>dialup</STRONG>, or <STRONG>unknown</STRONG>. When <STRONG>tset</STRONG> is used in a
185 startup script it is often desirable to provide information about the
186 type of terminal used on such ports.
188 The <STRONG>-m</STRONG> options maps from some set of conditions to a terminal type,
189 that is, to tell <STRONG>tset</STRONG> "If I'm on this port at a particular speed, guess
190 that I'm on that kind of terminal".
192 The argument to the <STRONG>-m</STRONG> option consists of an optional port type, an
193 optional operator, an optional baud rate specification, an optional
194 colon (":") character and a terminal type. The port type is a string
195 (delimited by either the operator or the colon character). The
196 operator may be any combination of ">", "<", "@", and "!"; ">" means
197 greater than, "<" means less than, "@" means equal to and "!" inverts
198 the sense of the test. The baud rate is specified as a number and is
199 compared with the speed of the standard error output (which should be
200 the control terminal). The terminal type is a string.
202 If the terminal type is not specified on the command line, the <STRONG>-m</STRONG>
203 mappings are applied to the terminal type. If the port type and baud
204 rate match the mapping, the terminal type specified in the mapping
205 replaces the current type. If more than one mapping is specified, the
206 first applicable mapping is used.
208 For example, consider the following mapping: <STRONG>dialup>9600:vt100</STRONG>. The
209 port type is dialup , the operator is >, the baud rate specification is
210 9600, and the terminal type is vt100. The result of this mapping is to
211 specify that if the terminal type is <STRONG>dialup</STRONG>, and the baud rate is
212 greater than 9600 baud, a terminal type of <STRONG>vt100</STRONG> will be used.
214 If no baud rate is specified, the terminal type will match any baud
215 rate. If no port type is specified, the terminal type will match any
216 port type. For example, <STRONG>-m</STRONG> <STRONG>dialup:vt100</STRONG> <STRONG>-m</STRONG> <STRONG>:?xterm</STRONG> will cause any
217 dialup port, regardless of baud rate, to match the terminal type vt100,
218 and any non-dialup port type to match the terminal type ?xterm. Note,
219 because of the leading question mark, the user will be queried on a
220 default port as to whether they are actually using an xterm terminal.
222 No whitespace characters are permitted in the <STRONG>-m</STRONG> option argument.
223 Also, to avoid problems with meta-characters, it is suggested that the
224 entire <STRONG>-m</STRONG> option argument be placed within single quote characters, and
225 that <STRONG>csh</STRONG> users insert a backslash character ("\") before any
226 exclamation marks ("!").
229 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-OPTIONS">OPTIONS</a></H2><PRE>
230 The options are as follows:
232 <STRONG>-c</STRONG> Set control characters and modes.
234 <STRONG>-e</STRONG> <EM>ch</EM>
235 Set the erase character to <EM>ch</EM>.
237 <STRONG>-I</STRONG> Do not send the terminal or tab initialization strings to the
240 <STRONG>-i</STRONG> <EM>ch</EM>
241 Set the interrupt character to <EM>ch</EM>.
243 <STRONG>-k</STRONG> <EM>ch</EM>
244 Set the line kill character to <EM>ch</EM>.
246 <STRONG>-m</STRONG> <EM>mapping</EM>
247 Specify a mapping from a port type to a terminal; see subsection
248 "Terminal Type Mapping".
250 <STRONG>-Q</STRONG> Do not display any values for the erase, interrupt and line kill
251 characters. Normally <STRONG>tset</STRONG> displays the values for control
252 characters which differ from the system's default values.
254 <STRONG>-q</STRONG> The terminal type is displayed to the standard output, and the
255 terminal is not initialized in any way. The option "-" by itself
256 is equivalent but archaic.
258 <STRONG>-r</STRONG> Print the terminal type to the standard error output.
260 <STRONG>-s</STRONG> Print the sequence of shell commands to initialize the environment
261 variable <EM>TERM</EM> to the standard output; see subsection "Setting the
264 <STRONG>-V</STRONG> reports the version of <EM>ncurses</EM> which was used in this program, and
267 <STRONG>-w</STRONG> Resize the window to match the size deduced via <STRONG><A HREF="curs_terminfo.3x.html">setupterm(3x)</A></STRONG>.
268 Normally this has no effect, unless <STRONG>setupterm</STRONG> is not able to
269 detect the window size.
271 The arguments for the <STRONG>-e</STRONG>, <STRONG>-i</STRONG>, and <STRONG>-k</STRONG> options may either be entered as
272 actual characters or by using the "hat" notation, i.e., control-h may
273 be specified as "^H" or "^h".
275 If neither <STRONG>-c</STRONG> or <STRONG>-w</STRONG> is given, both options are assumed.
278 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-ENVIRONMENT">ENVIRONMENT</a></H2><PRE>
279 The <STRONG>tset</STRONG> command uses these environment variables:
282 tells <STRONG>tset</STRONG> whether to initialize <EM>TERM</EM> using <STRONG>sh(1)</STRONG> or <STRONG>csh(1)</STRONG>
285 <EM>TERM</EM> Denotes your terminal type. Each terminal type is distinct,
286 though many are similar.
289 may denote the location of a termcap database. If it is not an
290 absolute pathname, e.g., begins with a "/", <STRONG>tset</STRONG> removes the
291 variable from the environment before looking for the terminal
295 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-FILES">FILES</a></H2><PRE>
297 system port name to terminal type mapping database (BSD versions
300 <EM>/usr/share/terminfo</EM>
301 compiled terminal description database directory
304 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-PORTABILITY">PORTABILITY</a></H2><PRE>
305 Neither IEEE Std 1003.1/The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7
306 (POSIX.1-2008) nor X/Open Curses Issue 7 documents <STRONG>tset</STRONG> or <STRONG>reset</STRONG>.
308 The AT&T <STRONG>tput</STRONG> utility (AIX, HP-UX, Solaris) incorporated the terminal-
309 mode manipulation as well as termcap-based features such as resetting
310 tabstops from <STRONG>tset</STRONG> in BSD (4.1c), presumably with the intention of
311 making <STRONG>tset</STRONG> obsolete. However, each of those systems still provides
312 <STRONG>tset</STRONG>. In fact, the commonly-used <STRONG>reset</STRONG> utility is always an alias for
313 <STRONG>tset</STRONG>.
315 The <STRONG>tset</STRONG> utility provides backward compatibility with BSD environments;
316 under most modern Unices, <EM>/etc/inittab</EM> and <STRONG>getty(1)</STRONG> can set <EM>TERM</EM>
317 appropriately for each dial-up line, obviating what was <STRONG>tset</STRONG>'s most
318 important use. This implementation behaves like 4.4BSD <STRONG>tset</STRONG>, with a
319 few exceptions we shall consider now.
321 A few options are different because the <EM>TERMCAP</EM> variable is no longer
322 supported under terminfo-based <EM>ncurses</EM>:
324 <STRONG>o</STRONG> The <STRONG>-S</STRONG> option of BSD <STRONG>tset</STRONG> no longer works; it prints an error
325 message to the standard error and dies.
327 <STRONG>o</STRONG> The <STRONG>-s</STRONG> option only sets <EM>TERM</EM>, not <EM>TERMCAP</EM>.
329 There was an undocumented 4.4BSD feature that invoking <STRONG>tset</STRONG> via a link
330 named "TSET" (or via any other name beginning with an upper-case
331 letter) set the terminal to use upper-case only. This feature has been
334 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
335 4.4BSD. None of them were documented in 4.3BSD and all are of limited
336 utility at best. The <STRONG>-a</STRONG>, <STRONG>-d</STRONG>, and <STRONG>-p</STRONG> options are similarly not
337 documented or useful, but were retained as they appear to be in
338 widespread use. It is strongly recommended that any usage of these
339 three options be changed to use the <STRONG>-m</STRONG> option instead. The <STRONG>-a</STRONG>, <STRONG>-d</STRONG>, and
340 <STRONG>-p</STRONG> options are therefore omitted from the usage summary above.
342 Very old systems, e.g., 3BSD, used a different terminal driver which
343 was replaced in 4BSD in the early 1980s. To accommodate these older
344 systems, the 4BSD <STRONG>tset</STRONG> provided a <STRONG>-n</STRONG> option to specify that the new
345 terminal driver should be used. This implementation does not provide
348 It is still permissible to specify the <STRONG>-e</STRONG>, <STRONG>-i</STRONG>, and <STRONG>-k</STRONG> options without
349 arguments, although it is strongly recommended that such usage be fixed
350 to explicitly specify the character.
352 As of 4.4BSD, executing <STRONG>tset</STRONG> as <STRONG>reset</STRONG> no longer implies the <STRONG>-Q</STRONG> option.
353 Also, the interaction between the - option and the <EM>terminal</EM> argument in
354 some historic implementations of <STRONG>tset</STRONG> has been removed.
356 The <STRONG>-c</STRONG> and <STRONG>-w</STRONG> options are not found in earlier implementations.
357 However, a different window size-change feature was provided in 4.4BSD.
359 <STRONG>o</STRONG> In 4.4BSD, <STRONG>tset</STRONG> uses the window size from the termcap description
360 to set the window size if <STRONG>tset</STRONG> is not able to obtain the window
361 size from the operating system.
363 <STRONG>o</STRONG> In <EM>ncurses</EM>, <STRONG>tset</STRONG> obtains the window size using <STRONG>setupterm</STRONG>, which may
364 be from the operating system, the <EM>LINES</EM> and <EM>COLUMNS</EM> environment
365 variables or the terminal description.
367 Obtaining the window size from the terminal description is common to
368 both implementations, but considered obsolescent. Its only practical
369 use is for hardware terminals. Generally speaking, a window size would
370 be unset only if there were some problem obtaining the value from the
371 operating system (and <STRONG>setupterm</STRONG> would still fail). For that reason,
372 the <EM>LINES</EM> and <EM>COLUMNS</EM> environment variables may be useful for working
373 around window-size problems. Those have the drawback that if the
374 window is resized, those variables must be recomputed and reassigned.
375 To do this more easily, use the <STRONG>resize(1)</STRONG> program.
378 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-HISTORY">HISTORY</a></H2><PRE>
379 A <STRONG>reset</STRONG> command written by Kurt Shoens appeared in 1BSD (March 1978).
380 It set the <EM>erase</EM> and <EM>kill</EM> characters to <STRONG>^H</STRONG> (backspace) and <STRONG>@</STRONG>
381 respectively. Mark Horton improved this <STRONG>reset</STRONG> in 3BSD (October 1979),
382 adding <EM>intr</EM>, <EM>quit</EM>, <EM>start</EM>/<EM>stop</EM>, and <EM>eof</EM> characters as well as changing
383 the program to avoid modifying any user settings. That version of
384 <STRONG>reset</STRONG> did not use <EM>termcap</EM>.
386 Eric Allman wrote a distinct <STRONG>tset</STRONG> command for 1BSD, using a forerunner
387 of <EM>termcap</EM> called <EM>ttycap</EM>. Allman's comments in the source code
388 indicate that he began work in October 1977, continuing development
389 over the next few years. By late 1979, it had migrated to <EM>termcap</EM> and
390 handled the <EM>TERMCAP</EM> variable. Later comments indicate that <STRONG>tset</STRONG> was
391 modified in September 1980 to use logic copied from the 3BSD "reset"
392 program when it was invoked as <STRONG>reset</STRONG>. This version appeared in
393 4.1cBSD, late in 1982. Other developers such as Keith Bostic and Jim
394 Bloom continued to modify <STRONG>tset</STRONG> until 4.4BSD was released in 1993.
396 The <EM>ncurses</EM> implementation was lightly adapted from the 4.4BSD sources
397 to use the <EM>terminfo</EM> API by Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>.
400 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></H2><PRE>
401 <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>,
402 <STRONG>ttys(5)</STRONG>, <STRONG>environ(7)</STRONG>
406 ncurses 6.4 2023-12-16 <STRONG><A HREF="tset.1.html">tset(1)</A></STRONG>
410 <li><a href="#h2-NAME">NAME</a></li>
411 <li><a href="#h2-SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a></li>
412 <li><a href="#h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a>
414 <li><a href="#h3-tset---initialization">tset - initialization</a></li>
415 <li><a href="#h3-reset---reinitialization">reset - reinitialization</a></li>
416 <li><a href="#h3-Setting-the-Environment">Setting the Environment</a></li>
417 <li><a href="#h3-Terminal-Type-Mapping">Terminal Type Mapping</a></li>
420 <li><a href="#h2-OPTIONS">OPTIONS</a></li>
421 <li><a href="#h2-ENVIRONMENT">ENVIRONMENT</a></li>
422 <li><a href="#h2-FILES">FILES</a></li>
423 <li><a href="#h2-PORTABILITY">PORTABILITY</a></li>
424 <li><a href="#h2-HISTORY">HISTORY</a></li>
425 <li><a href="#h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></li>