TSET(1) 386BSD Reference Manual TSET(1)
NAME
tset - terminal initialization
SYNOPSIS
tset [-IQrs] [-] [-e ch] [-i ch] [-k ch] [-m mapping] [terminal]
reset [-IQrs] [-] [-e ch] [-i ch] [-k ch] [-m mapping] [terminal]
DESCRIPTION
Tset initializes terminals. Tset first determines the type of terminal
that you are using. This determination is done as follows, using the
first terminal type found.
o The terminal argument specified on the command line.
o The value of the TERM environmental variable.
o The terminal type associated with the standard error output
device in the /etc/ttys file.
o The default terminal type, ``unknown''.
If the terminal type was not specified on the command-line, the -m option
mappings are then applied (see below for more information). Then, if the
terminal type begins with a question mark (``?''), the user is prompted
for confirmation of the terminal type. An empty response confirms the
type, or, another type can be entered to specify a new type. Once the
terminal type has been determined, the termcap entry for the terminal is
retrieved. If no termcap entry is found for the type, the user is
prompted for another terminal type.
Once the termcap entry is retrieved, the window size, backspace,
interrupt and line kill characters (among many other things) are set and
the terminal and tab initialization strings are sent to the standard
error output. Finally, if the erase, interrupt and line kill characters
have changed, or are not set to their default values, their values are
displayed to the standard error output.
When invoked as reset, tset sets cooked and echo modes, turns off cbreak
and raw modes, turns on newline translation and resets any unset special
characters to their default values before doing the terminal
initialization described above. This is useful after a program dies
leaving a terminal in a abnormal state. Note, you may have to type
``<LF>reset<LF>'' (the line-feed character is normally control-J) to get
the terminal to work, as carriage-return may no longer work in the
abnormal state. Also, the terminal will often not echo the command.
The options are as follows:
- The terminal type is displayed to the standard output, and the
terminal is not initialized in any way.
-e Set the erase character to ch.
-I Do not send the terminal or tab initialization strings to the
terminal.
-i Set the interrupt character to ch.
-k Set the line kill character to ch.
-m Specify a mapping from a port type to a terminal. See below for
more information.
-r Print the terminal type to the standard error output.
-s Print the sequence of shell commands to initialize the environment
variables TERM and TERMCAP to the standard output.
-Q Don't display any values for the erase, interrupt and line kill
characters.
The arguments for the -e, -i and -k options may either be entered as
actual characters or by using the ``hat'' notation, i.e. control-h may be
specified as ``^H'' or ``^h''.
SETTING THE ENVIRONMENT
It is often desirable to set the terminal type and information about the
terminal's capabilities in the shell's environment. This is done with
the -s option; when this option is specified, the commands to enter the
information into the shell's environment are output to the standard
output. If the SHELL environmental variable ends in ``csh'', the output
commands are for the csh(1), otherwise, they are for sh(1). Note, the
output commands for the csh set and unset the shell variable ``noglob''.
The following line in the .login or .profile files will initialize the
environment correctly:
eval `tset -s options ... `
TERMINAL TYPE MAPPING
When the terminal is not hardwired into the system (or the current system
information is incorrect) the terminal type derived from the /etc/ttys
file or the TERM environmental variable is often something generic like
``network'', ``dialup'', or ``unknown''. When tset is used in a startup
script (.profile for sh(1) users or .login for csh(1) users) it is often
desirable to provide information about the type of terminal used on such
ports. The purpose of the -m option is to ``map'' from some set of
conditions to a terminal type, that is, to tell tset ``If I'm on this
port at a particular speed, guess that I'm on that kind of terminal''.
The argument to the -m option consists of an optional port type, an
optional operator, an optional baud rate specification, an optional colon
(``:'') character and a terminal type. The port type is a string
(delimited by either the operator or the colon character). The operator
may be any combination of: ``>'', ``<'', ``@'', and ``!''; ``>'' means
greater than, ``<'' means less than, ``@'' means equal to and ``!''
inverts the sense of the test. The baud rate is specified as a number
and is compared with the speed of the standard error output (which should
be the control terminal). The terminal type is a string.
If the terminal type is not specified on the command line, the -m
mappings are applied to the terminal type. If the port type and baud
rate match the mapping, the terminal type specified in the mapping
replaces the current type. If more than one mapping is specified, the
first applicable mapping is used.
For example, consider the following: ``dialup>9600:vt100''. The port type
is ``dialup'', the operator is ``>'', the baud rate specification is
``9600'', and the terminal type is ``vt100''. The result of this mapping
is to specify that if the terminal type is ``dialup'', and the baud rate
is greater than 9600 baud, a terminal type of ``vt100'' will be used.
If no port type is specified, the terminal type will match any port type,
for example, ``-m dialup:vt100 -m :?xterm'' will cause any dialup port,
regardless of baud rate, to match the terminal type ``vt100'', and any
non-dialup port type to match the terminal type ``?xterm''. Note, because
of the leading question mark, the user will be queried on a default port
as to whether they are actually using an xterm terminal.
No whitespace characters are permitted in the -m option argument. Also,
to avoid problems with metacharacters, it is suggested that the entire -m
option argument be placed within single quote characters, and that csh
users insert a backslash character (``\'') before any exclamation marks
(``!'').
ENVIRONMENT
The tset command utilizes the SHELL and TERM environment variables.
FILES
/etc/ttys system port name to terminal type mapping
database
/usr/share/misc/termcap terminal capability database
SEE ALSO
csh(1), sh(1), stty(1), tty(4), termcap(5), ttys(5), environ(7)
HISTORY
The tset command appeared in 3.0BSD.
COMPATIBILITY
The -A, -E, -h, -S, -u and -v options have been deleted from the tset
utility. None of them were documented in 4.3BSD and all are of limited
utility at best. The -a, -d and -p options are similarly not documented
or useful, but were retained as they appear to be in widespread use. It
is strongly recommended that any usage of these three options be changed
to use the -m option instead. The -n option remains, but has no effect.
It is still permissible to specify the -e, -i and -k options without
arguments, although it is strongly recommended that such usage be fixed
to explicitly specify the character.
Executing tset as reset no longer implies the -Q option. Also, the
interaction between the - option and the terminal argument in some
historic implementations of tset has been removed.
Finally, the tset implementation has been completely redone (as part of
the addition to the system of a IEEE Std1003.1-1988 (``POSIX'') compliant
terminal interface) and will no longer compile on systems with older
terminal interfaces.
4th Berkeley Distribution December 24, 1991 3