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| <TITLE>term 7</TITLE> |
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| <H1>term 7</H1> |
| <HR> |
| <PRE> |
| <!-- Manpage converted by man2html 3.0.1 --> |
| <STRONG><A HREF="term.7.html">term(7)</A></STRONG> <STRONG><A HREF="term.7.html">term(7)</A></STRONG> |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| </PRE> |
| <H2>NAME</H2><PRE> |
| term - conventions for naming terminal types |
| |
| |
| </PRE> |
| <H2>DESCRIPTION</H2><PRE> |
| The environment variable <STRONG>TERM</STRONG> should normally contain the |
| type name of the terminal, console or display-device type |
| you are using. This information is critical for all |
| screen-oriented programs, including your editor and |
| mailer. |
| |
| A default <STRONG>TERM</STRONG> value will be set on a per-line basis by |
| either <STRONG>/etc/inittab</STRONG> (Linux and System-V-like UNIXes) or |
| <STRONG>/etc/ttys</STRONG> (BSD UNIXes). This will nearly always suffice |
| for workstation and microcomputer consoles. |
| |
| If you use a dialup line, the type of device attached to |
| it may vary. Older UNIX systems pre-set a very dumb ter- |
| minal type like `dumb' or `dialup' on dialup lines. Newer |
| ones may pre-set `vt100', reflecting the prevalence of DEC |
| VT100-compatible terminals and personal-computer emula- |
| tors. |
| |
| Modern telnets pass your <STRONG>TERM</STRONG> environment variable from |
| the local side to the remote one. There can be problems |
| if the remote terminfo or termcap entry for your type is |
| not compatible with yours, but this situation is rare and |
| can almost always be avoided by explicitly exporting |
| `vt100' (assuming you are in fact using a VT100-superset |
| console, terminal, or terminal emulator.) |
| |
| In any case, you are free to override the system <STRONG>TERM</STRONG> set- |
| ting to your taste in your shell profile. The <STRONG><A HREF="tset.1.html">tset(1)</A></STRONG> |
| utility may be of assistance; you can give it a set of |
| rules for deducing or requesting a terminal type based on |
| the tty device and baud rate. |
| |
| Setting your own <STRONG>TERM</STRONG> value may also be useful if you have |
| created a custom entry incorporating options (such as |
| visual bell or reverse-video) which you wish to override |
| the system default type for your line. |
| |
| Terminal type descriptions are stored as files of capabil- |
| ity data underneath /usr/share/terminfo. To browse a list |
| of all terminal names recognized by the system, do |
| |
| toe | more |
| |
| from your shell. These capability files are in a binary |
| format optimized for retrieval speed (unlike the old text- |
| based <STRONG>termcap</STRONG> format they replace); to examine an entry, |
| you must use the <STRONG><A HREF="infocmp.1m.html">infocmp(1m)</A></STRONG> command. Invoke it as fol- |
| lows: |
| |
| infocmp <EM>entry-name</EM> |
| |
| where <EM>entry-name</EM> is the name of the type you wish to exam- |
| ine (and the name of its capability file the subdirectory |
| of /usr/share/terminfo named for its first letter). This |
| command dumps a capability file in the text format |
| described by <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>. |
| |
| The first line of a <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG> description gives the |
| names by which terminfo knows a terminal, separated by `|' |
| (pipe-bar) characters with the last name field terminated |
| by a comma. The first name field is the type's <EM>primary</EM> |
| <EM>name</EM>, and is the one to use when setting <STRONG>TERM</STRONG>. The last |
| name field (if distinct from the first) is actually a |
| description of the terminal type (it may contain blanks; |
| the others must be single words). Name fields between the |
| first and last (if present) are aliases for the terminal, |
| usually historical names retained for compatibility. |
| |
| There are some conventions for how to choose terminal pri- |
| mary names that help keep them informative and unique. |
| Here is a step-by-step guide to naming terminals that also |
| explains how to parse them: |
| |
| First, choose a root name. The root will consist of a |
| lower-case letter followed by up to seven lower-case let- |
| ters or digits. You need to avoid using punctuation char- |
| acters in root names, because they are used and inter- |
| preted as filenames and shell meta-characters (such as !, |
| $, *, ?, etc.) embedded in them may cause odd and unhelp- |
| ful behavior. The slash (/), or any other character that |
| may be interpreted by anyone's file system (\, $, [, ]), |
| is especially dangerous (terminfo is platform-independent, |
| and choosing names with special characters could someday |
| make life difficult for users of a future port). The dot |
| (.) character is relatively safe as long as there is at |
| most one per root name; some historical terminfo names use |
| it. |
| |
| The root name for a terminal or workstation console type |
| should almost always begin with a vendor prefix (such as |
| <STRONG>hp</STRONG> for Hewlett-Packard, <STRONG>wy</STRONG> for Wyse, or <STRONG>att</STRONG> for AT&T ter- |
| minals), or a common name of the terminal line (<STRONG>vt</STRONG> for the |
| VT series of terminals from DEC, or <STRONG>sun</STRONG> for Sun Microsys- |
| tems workstation consoles, or <STRONG>regent</STRONG> for the ADDS Regent |
| series. You can list the terminfo tree to see what pre- |
| fixes are already in common use. The root name prefix |
| should be followed when appropriate by a model number; |
| thus <STRONG>vt100</STRONG>, <STRONG>hp2621</STRONG>, <STRONG>wy50</STRONG>. |
| |
| The root name for a PC-Unix console type should be the OS |
| name, i.e. <STRONG>linux</STRONG>, <STRONG>bsdos</STRONG>, <STRONG>freebsd</STRONG>, <STRONG>netbsd</STRONG>. It should <EM>not</EM> |
| be <STRONG>console</STRONG> or any other generic that might cause confusion |
| in a multi-platform environment! If a model number fol- |
| lows, it should indicate either the OS release level or |
| the console driver release level. |
| |
| The root name for a terminal emulator (assuming it does |
| not fit one of the standard ANSI or vt100 types) should be |
| the program name or a readily recognizable abbreviation of |
| it (i.e. <STRONG>versaterm</STRONG>, <STRONG>ctrm</STRONG>). |
| |
| Following the root name, you may add any reasonable number |
| of hyphen-separated feature suffixes. |
| |
| 2p Has two pages of memory. Likewise 4p, 8p, etc. |
| |
| mc Magic-cookie. Some terminals (notably older Wyses) |
| can only support one attribute without magic-cookie |
| lossage. Their base entry is usually paired with |
| another that has this suffix and uses magic cookies |
| to support multiple attributes. |
| |
| -am Enable auto-margin (right-margin wraparound). |
| |
| -m Mono mode - suppress color support. |
| |
| -na No arrow keys - termcap ignores arrow keys which are |
| actually there on the terminal, so the user can use |
| the arrow keys locally. |
| |
| -nam No auto-margin - suppress am capability. |
| |
| -nl No labels - suppress soft labels. |
| |
| -nsl No status line - suppress status line. |
| |
| -pp Has a printer port which is used. |
| |
| -rv Terminal in reverse video mode (black on white). |
| |
| -s Enable status line. |
| |
| -vb Use visible bell (flash) rather than beep. |
| |
| -w Wide; terminal is in 132 column mode. |
| |
| Conventionally, if your terminal type is a variant |
| intended to specify a line height, that suffix should go |
| first. So, for a hypothetical FuBarCo model 2317 terminal |
| in 30-line mode with reverse video, best form would be |
| <STRONG>fubar-30-rv</STRONG> (rather than, say, `fubar-rv-30'). |
| |
| Terminal types that are written not as standalone entries, |
| but rather as components to be plugged into other entries |
| via <STRONG>use</STRONG> capabilities, are distinguished by using embedded |
| plus signs rather than dashes. |
| |
| Commands which use a terminal type to control display |
| often accept a -T option that accepts a terminal name |
| argument. Such programs should fall back on the <STRONG>TERM</STRONG> |
| environment variable when no -T option is specified. |
| |
| |
| </PRE> |
| <H2>PORTABILITY</H2><PRE> |
| For maximum compatibility with older System V UNIXes, |
| names and aliases should be unique within the first 14 |
| characters. |
| |
| |
| </PRE> |
| <H2>FILES</H2><PRE> |
| /usr/share/terminfo/?/* |
| compiled terminal capability data base |
| |
| /etc/inittab |
| tty line initialization (AT&T-like UNIXes) |
| |
| /etc/ttys |
| tty line initialization (BSD-like UNIXes) |
| |
| |
| </PRE> |
| <H2>SEE ALSO</H2><PRE> |
| <STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">curses(3x)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="term.5.html">term(5)</A></STRONG>. |
| |
| |
| |
| <STRONG><A HREF="term.7.html">term(7)</A></STRONG> |
| </PRE> |
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