tput 1

tput(1)                                                         tput(1)


       tput,  reset  -  initialize  a  terminal or query terminfo


       tput [-Ttype] capname [parameters]
       tput [-Ttype] clear
       tput [-Ttype] init
       tput [-Ttype] reset
       tput [-Ttype] longname
       tput -S  <<
       tput -V


       The tput utility uses the terminfo database  to  make  the
       values  of terminal-dependent capabilities and information
       the  terminal,  or  return  the long name of the requested
       terminal type.  The result depends upon  the  capability's

               tput writes the string to the standard output.  No
               trailing newline is supplied.

               tput writes the decimal value to the standard out-
               put, with a trailing newline.

               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 out-

       Before using a value returned on the standard output,  the
       NOSTICS  sections.)   For  a complete list of capabilities


       -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 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 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
              this program, and exits.


       they are defined by the tput program.  The others are  the
       names of capabilities from the terminal database (see ter-
       minfo(5) for a list).  Although init  and  reset  resemble
       capability  names,  tput uses several capabilities to per-
       form these special functions.

              indicates the capability from  the  terminal  data-

              If  the  capability  is a string that takes parame-
              ters, the arguments following the  capability  will
              be used as parameters for the string.

              Most  parameters  are numbers.  Only a few terminal
              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-

       init   If  the  terminal  database is present and an entry
              the following will occur:

              (1)  first,  tput  retrieves  the  current terminal
                   mode settings for your terminal.  It does this
                   by successively testing

                   o   the standard error,

                   o   standard output,

                   o   standard input and

                   o   ultimately "/dev/tty"

                   to obtain terminal settings.  Having retrieved
                   these  settings,  tput  remembers  which  file
                   descriptor to use when updating settings.

              (2)  if the window size cannot be obtained from the
                   operating system, but the terminal description
                   (or environment, e.g., LINES and COLUMNS vari-
                   ables specify this), update the operating sys-
                   tem's notion of the window size.

              (3)  the terminal modes will be updated:

                   o   any  delays  (e.g.,  newline) specified in
                       the entry will be set in the tty driver,

                   o   tabs expansion will be turned  on  or  off
                       according  to  the  specification  in  the
                       entry, and

                   o   if tabs are not  expanded,  standard  tabs
                       will be set (every 8 spaces).

              (4)  if   present,  the  terminal's  initialization
                   strings will be output as detailed in the ter-
                   minfo(5) section on Tabs and Initialization,

              (5)  output is flushed.

              If an entry does not contain the information needed
              for any of these  activities,  that  activity  will
              silently be skipped.

       reset  This is similar to init, with two differences:

              (1)  before  any other initialization, the terminal
                   modes will be reset to a "sane" state:

                   o   set cooked and echo modes,

                   o   turn off cbreak and raw modes,

                   o   turn on newline translation and

                   o   reset  any  unset  special  characters  to
                       their default values

              (2)  Instead of putting out initialization strings,
                   the terminal's reset strings will be output if
                   strings are not  present,  but  initialization
                   strings  are,  the initialization strings will
                   be output.

              Otherwise, reset acts identically to init.

              If the terminal 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)].


       tput handles the clear, init and reset commands specially:
       it allows for the possibility that it is invoked by a link
       with those names.

       same effect as  tput  reset.   The  tset(1)  utility  also
       treats a link named reset specially.

       Before  ncurses 6.1, the two utilities were different from
       each other:

       o   tset utility reset  the  terminal  modes  and  special
           characters (not done with tput).

       o   On the other hand, tset's repertoire of terminal capa-
           bilities for resetting the terminal was 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.

       o   The  reset  program  is  usually  an  alias  for tset,
           because of this  difference  with  resetting  terminal
           modes and special characters.

       With  the  changes made for ncurses 6.1, the reset feature
       of the two programs is (mostly) the same.  A  few  differ-
       ences remain:

       o   The  tset  program waits one second when resetting, in
           case it happens to be a hardware terminal.

       o   The two programs  write  the  terminal  initialization
           strings  to  different  streams  (i.e.,.  the standard
           error for tset and the standard output for tput).

           Note:  although  these  programs  write  to  different
           streams,  redirecting their output to a file will cap-
           ture only part of their actions.  The changes  to  the
           terminal  modes  are  not  affected by redirecting the

       effect  as  tput  init.  Again, you are less likely to use
       that link because another program named init  has  a  more
       well-established use.


       tput init
            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.

       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 termi-

       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

       tput hc
            Set  exit code to indicate if the current terminal is
            a hard copy terminal.

       tput cup 23 4
            umn 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  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.


              compiled terminal description database

              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
              information,  see the Tabs and Initialization, sec-
              tion of terminfo(5)


       type of capname:


          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).

                 a  value of 0 is always set, whether or not cap-
                 name is defined  for  this  terminal  type.   To
                 determine  if capname is defined for this termi-
                 nal 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
                 + errno.

       Any other exit code indicates an error; see  the  DIAGNOS-
       TICS section.


       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
                   tput -T450 lines and tput -T2621 xmc)
       2           usage error
       3           unknown terminal type or no terminfo database
       4           unknown terminfo capability capname
       >4          error occurred in -S


       The tput command was begun by Bill Joy in 1980.  The  ini-
       tial version only cleared the screen.

       AT&T  System  V  provided  a different tput command, whose
       init and reset  subcommands (more than half  the  program)
       were incorporated from the reset feature of BSD tset writ-
       ten by Eric Allman.

       Keith Bostic replaced the BSD tput command in 1989 with  a
       new  implementation  based  on  the  AT&T System V program
       tput.  Like the AT&T program,  Bostic's  version  accepted
       some  parameters  named  for terminfo capabilities (clear,
       init, longname and reset).  However (because he  had  only
       termcap  available),  it  accepted termcap names for other
       capabilities.  Also, Bostic's BSD tput did not modify  the
       terminal I/O modes as the earlier BSD tset had done.

       At  the  same  time,  Bostic  added  a  shell script named
       "clear", which used tput to clear the screen.

       Both of these appeared in 4.4BSD,  becoming  the  "modern"
       BSD implementation of tput.

       This  implementation of tput began from a different source
       than AT&T or BSD: Ross Ridge's mytinfo package,  published
       on  comp.sources.unix  in  December 1992.  Ridge's program
       made more sophisticated use of the  terminal  capabilities
       than  the BSD program.  Eric Raymond used the tput program
       Using  the  portions  dealing  with  terminal capabilities
       almost without change, Raymond made  improvements  to  the
       way the command-line parameters were handled.


       This  implementation of tput differs from AT&T tput in two
       important areas:

       o   tput capname writes to the standard output.  That need
           not  be  a regular terminal.  However, the subcommands
           which manipulate terminal modes may not use the  stan-
           dard output.

           The  AT&T implementation's init and reset commands use
           the BSD (4.1c) tset source, which manipulates terminal
           modes.   It  successively tries standard output, stan-
           dard error, standard  input  before  falling  back  to
           "/dev/tty" and finally just assumes a 1200Bd terminal.
           When updating terminal modes, it ignores errors.

           Until changes made after ncurses  6.0,  tput  did  not
           modify  terminal  modes.   tput  now  uses  a  similar
           scheme, using functions shared with  tset  (and  ulti-
           mately  based  on the 4.4BSD tset).  If it is not able
           to open a terminal, e.g., when running in  cron,  tput
           will return an error.

           seeing if all of the characters are numeric, or not.

           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  the
           parameter types for the standard capname operands, and
           an internal library function  to  analyze  nonstandard
           capname operands.

       This  implementation (unlike others) can accept both term-
       cap and terminfo names for the capname feature, if termcap
       support  is  compiled in.  However, the predefined termcap
       and terminfo names have two ambiguities in this case  (and
       the terminfo name is assumed):

       o   The  termcap  name dl corresponds to the terminfo name
           dl1 (delete one line).
           The terminfo name dl corresponds to the  termcap  name
           DL (delete a given number of lines).

       o   The  termcap  name ed corresponds to the terminfo name
           rmdc (end delete mode).
           The terminfo name ed corresponds to the  termcap  name
           cd (clear to end of screen).

       tion features used in the cup example, were not  supported
       in  BSD curses before 4.3reno (1989) or in AT&T/USL curses
       before SVr4 (1988).

       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:

       o   In  this  implementation, clear is part of the capname
           support.  The others (init and longname) do not corre-
           spond to terminal capabilities.

       o   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 op-

       o   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.

       o   X/Open Curses Issue 7 documents tput differently, with
           capname  and the other features used in this implemen-

           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

       o   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.


       clear(1),    stty(1),   tabs(1),   tset(1),   terminfo(5),

       This describes ncurses version 6.0 (patch 20170128).