The tput utility uses the terminfo database to make the
values of terminal-dependent capabilities and information
- available to the shell (see sh(1)), to initialize or reset
+ available to the shell (see sh(1)), to initialize or reset
the terminal, or return the long name of the requested
- terminal type. tput outputs a string if the attribute
- (capability name) is of type string, or an integer if the
- attribute is of type integer. If the attribute is of type
- boolean, tput simply sets the exit code (0 for TRUE if the
- terminal has the capability, 1 for FALSE if it does not),
- and produces no output. Before using a value returned on
- standard output, the user should test the exit code [$?,
- see sh(1)] to be sure it is 0. (See the EXITCODES and
- DIAGNOSTICS sections.) For a complete list of capabili-
- ties and the capname associated with each, see ter-
- minfo(1).
+ terminal type. The result depends upon the capability's
+ type:
+
+ string
+ tput writes the string to the standard output.
+ No trailing newline is supplied.
+
+ integer
+ tput writes the decimal value to the standard
+ output, with a trailing newline.
+
+ boolean
+ tput simply sets the exit code (0 for TRUE if
+ the terminal has the capability, 1 for FALSE
+ if it does not), and writes nothing to the
+ standard output.
+
+ Before using a value returned on the standard output, the
+ application should test the exit code (e.g., $?, see
+ sh(1)) to be sure it is 0. (See the EXITCODES and DIAG-
+ NOSTICS sections.) For a complete list of capabilities
+ and the capname associated with each, see terminfo(5).
-Ttype indicates the type of terminal. Normally this
option is unnecessary, because the default is taken
from the environment variable TERM. If -T is spec-
ified, then the shell variables LINES and COLUMNS
- will be ignored,and the operating system will not
- be queried for the actual screen size.
+ will also be ignored.
capname
- indicates the attribute from the terminfo database.
- When termcap support is compiled in, the termcap
- name for the attribute is also accepted.
-
- parms If the attribute is a string that takes parameters,
- the arguments parms will be instantiated into the
- string. An all-numeric argument will be passed to
- the attribute as a number.
-
- Only a few terminfo capabilities require string
- parameters; tput uses a table to decide which to
- pass as strings. Normally tput uses tparm (3x) to
- perform the substitution. If no parameters are
- given for the attribute, tput writes the string
- without performing the substitution.
-
- -S allows more than one capability per invocation of
+ indicates the capability from the terminfo data-
+ base. When termcap support is compiled in, the
+ termcap name for the capability is also accepted.
+
+ parms If the capability is a string that takes parame-
+ ters, the arguments parms will be instantiated into
+ the string.
+
+ Most parameters are numbers. Only a few terminfo
+ capabilities require string parameters; tput uses a
+ table to decide which to pass as strings. Normally
+ tput uses tparm (3x) to perform the substitution.
+ If no parameters are given for the capability, tput
+ writes the string without performing the substitu-
+ tion.
+
+ -S allows more than one capability per invocation of
tput. The capabilities must be passed to tput from
the standard input instead of from the command line
- (see example). Only one capname is allowed per
- line. The -S option changes the meaning of the 0
- and 1 boolean and string exit codes (see the EXIT
+ (see example). Only one capname is allowed per
+ line. The -S option changes the meaning of the 0
+ and 1 boolean and string exit codes (see the EXIT
CODES section).
- Again, tput uses a table and the presence of
- parameters in its input to decide whether to use
- tparm (3x), and how to interpret the parameters.
+ Again, tput uses a table and the presence of param-
+ eters in its input to decide whether to use tparm
+ (3x), and how to interpret the parameters.
- -V reports the version of ncurses which was used in
+ -V reports the version of ncurses which was used in
this program, and exits.
- init If the terminfo database is present and an entry
+ init If the terminfo database is present and an entry
for the user's terminal exists (see -Ttype, above),
- the following will occur: (1) if present, the ter-
- minal's initialization strings will be output (is1,
- is2, is3, if, iprog), (2) any delays (e.g., new-
- line) specified in the entry will be set in the tty
- driver, (3) tabs expansion will be turned on or off
- according to the specification in the entry, and
- (4) if tabs are not expanded, standard tabs will be
- set (every 8 spaces). If an entry does not contain
- the information needed for any of the four above
- activities, that activity will silently be skipped.
+ the following will occur:
+
+ (1) if present, the terminal's initialization
+ strings will be output as detailed in the
+ terminfo(5) section on TabsandInitializa-
+ tion,
+
+ (2) any delays (e.g., newline) specified in the
+ entry will be set in the tty driver,
+
+ (3) tabs expansion will be turned on or off
+ according to the specification in the entry,
+ and
+
+ (4) if tabs are not expanded, standard tabs will
+ be set (every 8 spaces).
+
+ If an entry does not contain the information needed
+ for any of the four above activities, that activity
+ will silently be skipped.
reset Instead of putting out initialization strings, the
terminal's reset strings will be output if present
@@ -153,13 +174,13 @@
tputinit
Initialize the terminal according to the type of ter-
minal in the environmental variable TERM. This com-
mand should be included in everyone's .profile after
the environmental variable TERM has been exported, as
- illustrated on the profile(5) manual page.
+ illustrated on the profile(5) manual page.
tput-T5620reset
Reset an AT&T 5620 terminal, overriding the type of
@@ -183,16 +204,16 @@
bold=`tputsmso`offbold=`tputrmso`
Set the shell variables bold, to begin stand-out mode
sequence, and offbold, to end standout mode sequence,
- for the current terminal. This might be followed by
- a prompt: echo"${bold}Pleasetypeinyourname:
+ for the current terminal. This might be followed by
+ a prompt: echo"${bold}Pleasetypeinyourname:${offbold}\c"tputhc
- Set exit code to indicate if the current terminal is
+ Set exit code to indicate if the current terminal is
a hard copy terminal.
tputcup234
- Send the sequence to move the cursor to row 23, col-
+ Send the sequence to move the cursor to row 23, col-
umn 4.
tputcup
@@ -200,8 +221,8 @@
parameters substituted.
tputlongname
- Print the long name from the terminfo database for
- the type of terminal specified in the environmental
+ Print the long name from the terminfo database for
+ the type of terminal specified in the environmental
variable TERM.
tput-S<<!
@@ -210,45 +231,39 @@
>bold>!
- This example shows tput processing several capabili-
- ties in one invocation. It clears the screen, moves
- the cursor to position 10, 10 and turns on bold
- (extra bright) mode. The list is terminated by an
+ This example shows tput processing several capabili-
+ ties in one invocation. It clears the screen, moves
+ the cursor to position 10, 10 and turns on bold
+ (extra bright) mode. The list is terminated by an
exclamation mark (!) on a line by itself.
/usr/share/terminfo
compiled terminal description database
- /usr/include/curses.h
- curses(3x) header file
-
- /usr/include/term.h
- terminfo header file
-
/usr/share/tabset/*
tab settings for some terminals, in a format appro-
- priate to be output to the terminal (escape
- sequences that set margins and tabs); for more
+ priate to be output to the terminal (escape
+ sequences that set margins and tabs); for more
information, see the "Tabs and Initialization" sec-
tion of terminfo(5)
If the -S option is used, tput checks for errors from each
- line, and if any errors are found, will set the exit code
- to 4 plus the number of lines with errors. If no errors
- are found, the exit code is 0. No indication of which
+ line, and if any errors are found, will set the exit code
+ to 4 plus the number of lines with errors. If no errors
+ are found, the exit code is 0. No indication of which
line failed can be given so exit code 1 will never appear.
- Exit codes 2, 3, and 4 retain their usual interpretation.
+ Exit codes 2, 3, and 4 retain their usual interpretation.
If the -S option is not used, the exit code depends on the
type of capname:
boolean
- a value of 0 is set for TRUE and 1 for FALSE.
+ a value of 0 is set for TRUE and 1 for FALSE.
string a value of 0 is set if the capname is defined
for this terminal type (the value of capname
@@ -275,14 +290,14 @@
tput prints the following error messages and sets the cor-
responding exit codes.
exit code error message
---------------------------------------------------------------------
0 (capname is a numeric variable that is not specified in
- the terminfo(1) database for this terminal type, e.g.
+ the terminfo(5) database for this terminal type, e.g.
tput-T450lines and tput-T2621xmc)
1 no error message is printed, see the EXITCODES section.
2 usage error
@@ -293,24 +308,55 @@
The longname and -S options, and the parameter-substitu-
tion features used in the cup example, are not supported
in BSD curses or in AT&T/USL curses before SVr4.
+ X/Open documents only the operands for clear, init and
+ reset. In this implementation, clear is part of the cap-
+ name support. Other implementations of tput on SVr4-based
+ systems such as Solaris, IRIX64 and HPUX as well as others
+ such as AIX and Tru64 provide support for capname oper-
+ ands.
+
+ A few platforms such as FreeBSD and NetBSD recognize term-
+ cap names rather than terminfo capability names in their
+ respective tput commands.
+
+ Most implementations which provide support for capname op-
+ erands use the tparm function to expand parameters in it.
+ That function expects a mixture of numeric and string
+ parameters, requiring tput to know which type to use.
+ This implementation uses a table to determine that for the
+ standard capname operands, and an internal library func-
+ tion to analyze nonstandard capname operands. Other
+ implementations may simply guess that an operand contain-
+ ing only digits is intended to be a number.
+