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tset(1)								       tset(1)

NAME
       tset, reset - terminal initialization

SYNOPSIS
       tset [-IQVqrs] [-] [-e ch] [-i ch] [-k ch] [-m mapping] [terminal]
       reset [-IQVqrs] [-] [-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.

       1. The terminal argument specified on the command line.

       2. The value of the TERM environmental variable.

       3.  (BSD	 systems only.) The terminal type associated with the standard
       error output device in the /etc/ttys file.  (On Linux and System-V-like
       UNIXes,	getty  does  this  job	by  setting TERM according to the type
       passed to it by /etc/inittab.)

       4. 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 terminfo
       entry for the terminal is retrieved.  If no terminfo entry is found for
       the type, the user is prompted for another terminal type.

       Once  the  terminfo  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 stan‐
       dard 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 an 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:

       -q   The terminal type is displayed to the  standard  output,  and  the
	    terminal  is not initialized in any way.  The option `-' by itself
	    is equivalent but archaic.

       -e   Set the erase character to ch.

       -I   Do not send the terminal or tab initialization strings to the ter‐
	    minal.

       -Q   Don't  display  any	 values for the erase, interrupt and line kill
	    characters.

       -V   reports the version of ncurses which was used in this program, and
	    exits.

       -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
	    variable  TERM  to	the standard output.  See the section below on
	    setting the environment for details.

       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 enter the terminal type and information	 about
       the terminal's capabilities into the shell's environment.  This is done
       using the -s option.

       When the -s option is specified, the commands to enter the  information
       into  the  shell's  environment are written to the standard output.  If
       the SHELL environmental variable ends in ``csh'', the commands are  for
       csh,  otherwise, they are for sh.  Note, the csh commands set and unset
       the shell variable noglob, leaving it unset.  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 sys‐
       tem 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	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 partic‐
       ular 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 opera‐
       tor 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  map‐
       pings 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  mapping:  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 baud rate is specified, the terminal type	will  match  any  baud
       rate.   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 meta-characters, 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 exclama‐
       tion marks (``!'').

HISTORY
       The tset command appeared in BSD 3.0.  The ncurses  implementation  was
       lightly	adapted	 from the 4.4BSD sources for a terminfo environment by
       Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>.

COMPATIBILITY
       The tset utility has been provided for backward-compatibility with  BSD
       environments  (under  most modern UNIXes, /etc/inittab and getty(1) can
       set TERM appropriately for each dial-up line; this  obviates  what  was
       tset's  most  important	use).  This implementation behaves like 4.4BSD
       tset, with a few exceptions specified here.

       The -S option of BSD tset no longer works; it prints an	error  message
       to  stderr  and dies.  The -s option only sets TERM, not TERMCAP.  Both
       these changes are because the TERMCAP variable is no  longer  supported
       under  terminfo-based  ncurses, which makes tset -S useless (we made it
       die noisily rather than silently induce lossage).

       There was an undocumented 4.4BSD feature that invoking tset via a  link
       named  `TSET`  (or via any other name beginning with an upper-case let‐
       ter) set the terminal to use upper-case only.  This  feature  has  been
       omitted.

       The -A, -E, -h, -u and -v options were deleted from the tset utility in
       4.4BSD. 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 docu‐
       mented 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.	The -adnp options are therefore omitted from the usage
       summary above.

       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.

       As of 4.4BSD, 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.

ENVIRONMENT
       The tset command uses the SHELL and TERM environment variables.

FILES
       /etc/ttys
	    system port name to terminal type mapping database	(BSD  versions
	    only).

       /usr/share/terminfo
	    terminal capability database

SEE ALSO
       csh(1), sh(1), stty(1), tty(4), termcap(5), ttys(5), environ(7)

								       tset(1)
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