https://invisible-island.net/xterm/
resize - set environment and terminal settings to current xterm window
size
resize [ -v | -u | -c ] [ -s [ row col ] ]
Resize prints a shell command for setting the appropriate environment
variables to indicate the current size of xterm window from which the
command is run.
Resize determines the command through several steps:
o first, it finds the name of the user's shell program. It uses the
SHELL variable if set, otherwise it uses the user's data from
/etc/passwd.
o then it decides whether to use Bourne shell syntax or C-Shell
syntax. It uses a built-in table of known shells, which can be
overridden by the -u and -c options.
o then resize asks the operating system for the terminal settings.
This is the same information which can be manipulated using stty.
o then resize asks the terminal for its size in characters.
Depending on whether the "-s option is given, resize uses a
different escape sequence to ask for this information.
o at this point, resize attempts to update the terminal settings to
reflect the terminal window's size in pixels:
o if the -s option is used, resize then asks the terminal for its
size in pixels.
o otherwise, resize asks the operating system for the information
and updates that after ensuring that the window's dimensions
are a multiple of the character height and width.
o in either case, the updated terminal settings are done using a
different system call than used for stty.
o then resize updates the terminal settings to reflect any altered
values such as its size in rows or columns. This affects the
values shown by stty.
o finally, resize generates shell commands for setting the
environment variables, and writes that to the standard output.
The following options may be used with resize:
-c This option indicates that C shell commands should be generated
even if the user's current shell does not appear to use C shell
syntax.
-s [rows columns]
This option indicates that Sun console escape sequences will be
used instead of the VT100-style xterm escape codes. If rows
and columns are given, resize will ask the xterm to resize
itself using those values.
Both of the escape sequences used for this option (first to
obtain the window size and second to modify it) are subject to
xterm's allowWindowOps resource setting. The window manager
may also choose to disallow the change.
The VT100-style escape sequence used to determine the screen
size always works for VT100-compatible terminals. VT100s have
no corresponding way to modify the screensize.
-u This option indicates that Bourne shell commands should be
generated even if the user's current shell does not appear to
use Bourne shell syntax.
-v This causes resize to print a version number to the standard
output, and then exit.
Note that the Sun console escape sequences are recognized by XFree86
xterm and by dtterm. The resize program may be installed as sunsize,
which causes makes it assume the -s option.
The rows and columns arguments must appear last; though they are
normally associated with the -s option, they are parsed separately.
SHELL Unless overridden by the -c option, resize determines
the user's current shell by
o first checking if $SHELL is set, and using that,
o otherwise resize looks in the password file
(/etc/passwd).
Generally Bourne-shell variants (including ksh) do not
modify $SHELL, so it is possible for resize to be
confused if one runs resize from a Bourne shell spawned
from a C shell.
After determining the user's shell, resize checks the
shell's name against a table of known shell names. If
it does not find the name in its table, resize will use
C shell syntax for the generated commands to set
environment variables.
TERM Resize's generated shell command sets this to "xterm-
new" if not already set.
TERMCAP Resize's generated shell command sets this variable on
systems using termcap, e.g., when resize is linked with
the termcap library rather than a terminfo library. The
latter does not provide the complete text for a termcap
entry.
COLUMNS, LINES Resize's generated shell command sets these variables on
systems using terminfo. Many applications (including
the curses library) use those variables when set to
override their screensize.
/etc/termcap for the base termcap entry to modify.
~/.cshrc user's alias for the command.
For resize's output to take effect, resize must either be evaluated as
part of the command line (usually done with a shell alias or function)
or else redirected to a file which can then be read in. From the C
shell (usually known as /bin/csh), the following alias could be defined
in the user's .cshrc:
% alias rs 'set noglob; eval `resize`'
After resizing the window, the user would type:
% rs
Users of versions of the Bourne shell (usually known as /bin/sh) that
don't have command functions will need to send the output to a
temporary file and then read it back in with the "." command:
$ resize > /tmp/out
$ . /tmp/out
Mark Vandevoorde (MIT-Athena), Edward Moy (Berkeley)
Thomas Dickey (invisible-island.net).
Copyright (c) 1984, 1985 by X Consortium
See X(7) for a complete copyright notice.
use_env(3X)
csh(1), stty(1), tset(1)
xterm(1)
Patch #403 2025-10-19 RESIZE(1)