NAME

term − conventional names for terminals

DESCRIPTION

The environment variable TERM is maintained as part of the shell environment (see profile(4), and environ(5)) and is used by some commands (for example, tabs(1)). The tset(1) command can be used to set the TERM variable.  The name to which TERM is set usually exists in a compiled terminfo database (see terminfo(4)). The following names are always available in the terminfo database:

hp Minimal subset of the capabilities of all Hewlett-Packard terminals and terminal emulators supported on HP-UX systems.  Note that entries for specific models of terminals are generally available, and that they often provide better use of the features of those terminals. 

dumb Generic name for terminals that lack reverse line-feed and other special escape sequences. 

dialup Generic name for dial-in ports connected to unknown terminals. 

The TERM variable is also used by commands that use terminal and printer description files from the /usr/lib/terminfo directory (such as nroff(1), man(1), and tabs(1)). One TERM name that has a file in this directory is:

lp Generic name for a line printer. 

A basic terminal name can have a maximum of eight characters comprised of A-Z, a-z, 0-9, and −.  Terminal submodels and operational modes are distinguished by suffixes beginning with a −.  Names should be based on original vendors, rather than local distributors.  Terminals acquired from the same vendor should be designated with the same basic name. 

Commands whose behavior depends on the type of terminal used should accept arguments of the form −Tterm, where term is one of the names given above.  If no such argument is present, these commands should obtain the terminal type from the environment variable $TERM, which should contain term.

WARNINGS

The TERM variable is used differently by commands that originated from UCB code (such as vi(1) and more(1)) and commands that originated from Bell System III code (such as nroff(1) and tabs(1)). These different usages of TERM can be confusing. 

The inclusion of other names in the terminfo database or the /usr/lib/term directory does not imply support of these devices. 

AUTHOR

term was developed by AT&T and the University of California, Berkeley. 

SEE ALSO

man(1), mm(1), nroff(1), sh(1), stty(1), tabs(1), tset(1), ul(1), curses(3X), profile(4), terminfo(4), ttytype(4), environ(5). 

Hewlett-Packard Company  —  HP-UX Release 9.0: August 1992