tput(1) General Commands Manual tput(1)
NAME
tput, reset - initialize a terminal or query terminfo database
SYNOPSIS
tput [-Ttype] capname [parms ... ]
tput [-Ttype] init
tput [-Ttype] reset
tput [-Ttype] longname
tput -S <<
tput -V
DESCRIPTION
The tput utility uses the terminfo database to make the values of terminal-dependent capa-
bilities and information available to the shell (see sh(1)), to initialize or reset the
terminal, or return the long name of the requested terminal type. The result depends upon
the capability's type:
string
tput writes the string to the standard output. No trailing newline is sup-
plied.
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 EXIT CODES and DIAGNOSTICS sec-
tions.) 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 specified, then the
shell variables LINES and COLUMNS will also be ignored.
capname
indicates the capability from the terminfo database. When termcap support is com-
piled in, the termcap name for the capability is also accepted.
parms If the capability is a string that takes parameters, 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 substitution.
-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 exam-
ple). 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.
-V reports the version of ncurses which was used in this program, and exits.
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 terminal's initialization strings will be output as detailed
in the terminfo(5) section on Tabs and Initialization,
(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 (rs1, rs2, rs3, rf). If the reset strings are not present, but
initialization strings are, the initialization strings will be output. Otherwise,
reset acts identically to init.
longname
If the terminfo database is present and an entry for the user's terminal exists
(see -Ttype above), then the long name of the terminal will be put out. The long
name is the last name in the first line of the terminal's description in the ter-
minfo database [see term(5)].
If tput is invoked by a link named reset, this has the same effect as tput reset. See
tset for comparison, which has similar behavior.
EXAMPLES
tput init
Initialize the terminal according to the type of terminal in the environmental vari-
able TERM. This command should be included in everyone's .profile after the environ-
mental variable TERM has been exported, as illustrated on the profile(5) manual page.
tput -T5620 reset
Reset an AT&T 5620 terminal, overriding the type of terminal in the environmental
variable TERM.
tput cup 0 0
Send the sequence to move the cursor to row 0, column 0 (the upper left corner of the
screen, usually known as the "home" cursor position).
tput clear
Echo the clear-screen sequence for the current terminal.
tput cols
Print the number of columns for the current terminal.
tput -T450 cols
Print the number of columns for the 450 terminal.
bold=`tput smso` offbold=`tput rmso`
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}Please type in your name: ${offbold}\c"
tput hc
Set exit code to indicate if the current terminal is a hard copy terminal.
tput cup 23 4
Send the sequence to move the cursor to row 23, column 4.
tput cup
Send the terminfo string for cursor-movement, with no parameters substituted.
tput longname
Print the long name from the terminfo database for the type of terminal specified in
the environmental variable TERM.
tput -S <<!
> clear
> cup 10 10
> bold
> !
This example shows tput processing several capabilities 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.
FILES
/usr/share/terminfo
compiled terminal description database
/usr/share/tabset/*
tab settings for some terminals, in a format appropriate to be output to the termi-
nal (escape sequences that set margins and tabs); for more information, see the
"Tabs and Initialization" section of terminfo(5)
EXIT CODES
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 failed can be given so exit code 1
will never appear. 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.
string a value of 0 is set if the capname is defined for this terminal type (the
value of capname is returned on standard output); a value of 1 is set if cap-
name is not defined for this terminal type (nothing is written to standard
output).
integer
a value of 0 is always set, whether or not capname is defined for this termi-
nal type. To determine if capname is defined for this terminal type, the user
must test the value written to standard output. A value of -1 means that cap-
name is not defined for this terminal type.
other reset or init may fail to find their respective files. In that case, the exit
code is set to 4 + errno.
Any other exit code indicates an error; see the DIAGNOSTICS section.
DIAGNOSTICS
tput prints the following error messages and sets the corresponding exit codes.
exit code error message
---------------------------------------------------------------------
0 (capname is a numeric variable that is not specified in
the terminfo(5) database for this terminal type, e.g.
tput -T450 lines and tput -T2621 xmc)
1 no error message is printed, see the EXIT CODES section.
2 usage error
3 unknown terminal type or no terminfo database
4 unknown terminfo capability capname
>4 error occurred in -S
---------------------------------------------------------------------
PORTABILITY
The longname and -S options, and the parameter-substitution features used in the cup exam-
ple, 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 capname 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 operands.
A few platforms such as FreeBSD and NetBSD recognize termcap names rather than terminfo
capability names in their respective tput commands.
Most implementations which provide support for capname operands use the tparm function to
expand parameters in it. That function expects a mixture of numeric and string parame-
ters, 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 function to ana-
lyze nonstandard capname operands. Other implementations may simply guess that an operand
containing only digits is intended to be a number.
SEE ALSO
clear(1), stty(1), tabs(1), terminfo(5), curs_termcap(3X).
This describes ncurses version 5.9 (patch 20130511).
tput(1)
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