tput(1)
NAME
tput, reset - initialize a terminal or query terminfo database
SYNOPSIS
tput [-Ttype] capname [parameters] 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 capabilities 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 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 EXIT CODES and DIAGNOSTICS sections.) For a complete list of capabilities and the capname associated with each, see terminfo(5). Options -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. -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 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. Commands capname indicates the capability from the terminfo database. When termcap support is compiled in, the termcap name for the capability is also accepted. If the capability is a string that takes parameters, the arguments following the capability will be used as parameters for 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. 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 these 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 terminfo database [see term(5)]. Aliases tput handles the init and reset commands specially: it allows for the possibility that it is invoked by a link with those names. If tput is invoked by a link named reset, this has the same effect as tput reset. The tset(1) utility also treats a link named reset specially: * That utility resets the terminal modes and special characters (not done here). * On the other hand, tset's repertoire of terminal capabilities for resetting the terminal is more limited, i.e., only reset_1string, reset_2string and reset_file in contrast to the tab-stops and margins which are set by this utility. * The reset program is usually an alias for tset, due to the resetting of terminal modes and special characters. If tput is invoked by a link named init, this has the same effect as tput init. Again, you are less likely to use that link because another program named init has a more well-established use.
EXAMPLES
tput init
Initialize the terminal according to the type of terminal in the
environmental variable TERM. This command should be included in
everyone's .profile after the environmental 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
/etc/terminfo
compiled terminal description database
/usr/share/tabset/*
tab settings for some terminals, in a format appropriate to be
output to the terminal (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 capname 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 terminal 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 capname 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 example, are not supported in BSD curses or in AT&T/USL
curses before SVr4.
IEEE Std 1003.1/The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7
(POSIX.1-2008) documents only the operands for clear, init and reset.
There are a few interesting observations to make regarding that:
* In this implementation, clear is part of the capname support. The
others (init and longname) do not correspond to terminal
capabilities.
* 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 recognize termcap names rather than
terminfo capability names in their respective tput commands. Since
2010, NetBSD's tput uses terminfo names. Before that, it (like
FreeBSD) recognized termcap names.
Because (apparently) all of the certified Unix systems support the full
set of capability names, the reasoning for documenting only a few may
not be apparent.
* X/Open Curses Issue 7 documents tput differently, with capname and
the other features used in this implementation.
* That is, there are two standards for tput: POSIX (a subset) and
X/Open Curses (the full implementation). POSIX documents a subset
to avoid the complication of including X/Open Curses and the
terminal capabilities database.
* While it is certainly possible to write a tput program without
using curses, none of the systems which have a curses
implementation provide a tput utility which does not provide the
capname feature.
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 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 function to
analyze 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), tset(1), terminfo(5), termcap(3NCURSES). This describes ncurses version 6.0 (patch 20160625). tput(1)
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