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| <H1 class="no-header">term 7</H1> |
| <PRE> |
| <STRONG><A HREF="term.7.html">term(7)</A></STRONG> Miscellaneous Information Manual <STRONG><A HREF="term.7.html">term(7)</A></STRONG> |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| </PRE><H2><a name="h2-NAME">NAME</a></H2><PRE> |
| term - conventions for naming terminal types |
| |
| |
| </PRE><H2><a name="h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a></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> (e.g., System-V-like UNIXes) or <STRONG>/etc/ttys</STRONG> (BSD UNIXes). |
| This will nearly always suffice for workstation and microcomputer con- |
| soles. |
| |
| If you use a dialup line, the type of device attached to it may vary. |
| Older UNIX systems pre-set a very dumb terminal 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 |
| emulators. |
| |
| 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 sit- |
| uation is rare and can almost always be avoided by explicitly exporting |
| "vt100" (assuming you are in fact using a VT100-superset console, ter- |
| minal, or terminal emulator.) |
| |
| In any case, you are free to override the system <STRONG>TERM</STRONG> setting 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 capability 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 opti- |
| mized 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> com- |
| mand. Invoke it as follows: |
| |
| infocmp <EM>entry</EM><STRONG>_</STRONG><EM>name</EM> |
| |
| where <EM>entry</EM><STRONG>_</STRONG><EM>name</EM> is the name of the type you wish to examine (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 compat- |
| ibility. |
| |
| There are some conventions for how to choose terminal primary 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 let- |
| ter followed by up to seven lower-case letters or digits. You need to |
| avoid using punctuation characters in root names, because they are used |
| and interpreted as filenames and shell meta-characters (such as !, $, |
| *, ?, etc.) embedded in them may cause odd and unhelpful behavior. The |
| slash (/), or any other character that may be interpreted by anyone's |
| file system (\, $, [, ]), is especially dangerous (terminfo is plat- |
| form-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 terminals), 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 |
| Microsystems workstation consoles, or <STRONG>regent</STRONG> for the ADDS Regent |
| series. You can list the terminfo tree to see what prefixes 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 follows, 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 read- |
| ily 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 sup- |
| port 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 speci- |
| fied. |
| |
| |
| </PRE><H2><a name="h2-PORTABILITY">PORTABILITY</a></H2><PRE> |
| For maximum compatibility with older System V UNIXes, names and aliases |
| should be unique within the first 14 characters. |
| |
| |
| </PRE><H2><a name="h2-FILES">FILES</a></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><a name="h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></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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| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#h2-NAME">NAME</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#h2-PORTABILITY">PORTABILITY</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#h2-FILES">FILES</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></li> |
| </ul> |
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