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tput 1 2025-07-05 ncurses 6.5 User commands

tput(1)                          User commands                         tput(1)




NAME

       tput - initialize a terminal, exercise its capabilities, or query term-
       info database


SYNOPSIS

       tput [-v] [-T terminal-type] {cap-code [parameter ...]} ...

       tput [-v] [-T terminal-type] [-x] clear

       tput [-v] [-T terminal-type] init

       tput [-v] [-T terminal-type] reset

       tput [-v] [-T terminal-type] longname

       tput [-v] -S

       tput [-v] -V


DESCRIPTION

       tput uses the terminfo library and database to  make  terminal-specific
       capabilities  and  information available to the shell, to initialize or
       reset the terminal, or to report  a  description  of  the  current  (or
       specified)  terminal  type.  Terminal capabilities are accessed by cap-
       code.

       terminfo(5) discusses terminal capabilities at length  and  presents  a
       complete  list  of standardized cap-codes.  user_caps(5) presents other
       widely used but non-standard capabilities.

       When  retrieving  capability  values,  the  result  depends  upon   the
       capability's type.

       Boolean  tput  sets its exit status to 0 if the terminal possesses cap-
                code, and 1 if it does not.

       numeric  tput writes cap-code's decimal value to  the  standard  output
                stream if defined (-1 if it is not) followed by a newline.

       string   tput  writes cap-code's value to the standard output stream if
                defined, without a trailing newline.

       Before using a value returned on the standard output,  the  application
       should  test  tput 's exit status to be sure it is 0; see section "EXIT
       STATUS" below.


Operands

       Generally, an operand  is  a  cap-code,  a  capability  code  from  the
       terminal  database, or a parameter thereto.  Three others are specially
       recognized by tput: init, reset, and longname.  Although these resemble
       capability  codes,  they in fact receive special handling; we term them
       "pseudo-capabilities".

       cap-code   indicates a capability from the terminal database.

                  If cap-code is of string type  and  takes  parameters,  tput
                  interprets  arguments  following cap-code as the parameters,
                  up to the (fixed) quantity the capability requires.

                  Most  parameters  are  numeric.    Only   a   few   terminal
                  capabilities require string parameters; tput uses a table to
                  decide  which  to  pass  as  strings.   Normally  tput  uses
                  tparm(3x) to perform the substitution.  If no parameters are
                  given for the capability, tput  writes  the  string  without
                  performing the substitution.

       init       initializes  the  terminal.   If  the  terminal  database is
                  present and an entry for the user's  terminal  type  exists,
                  the following occur.

                  (1)  tput   retrieves  the  terminal's  mode  settings.   It
                       successively tests the file  descriptors  corresponding
                       to

                       o   the standard error stream,

                       o   the standard output stream,

                       o   the standard input stream, and

                       o   /dev/tty

                       to  obtain  terminal  settings.  Having retrieved them,
                       tput remembers which  descriptor  to  use  for  further
                       updates.

                  (2)  If  the terminal dimensions cannot be obtained from the
                       operating system, but the environment or terminal  type
                       database   entry   describes  them,  tput  updates  the
                       operating system's notion of them.

                  (3)  tput updates the terminal modes.

                       o   Any delays specified in  the  entry  (for  example,
                           when  a  newline  is  sent) are set in the terminal
                           driver.

                       o   Tab  expansion  is  turned  on  or  off   per   the
                           specification in the entry, and

                       o   if  tabs  are  not expanded, standard tabs (every 8
                           spaces) are set.

                  (4)  If initialization capabilities, detailed in  subsection
                       "Tabs  and Initialization" of terminfo(5), are present,
                       tput writes them to the standard output stream.

                  (5)  tput flushes the standard output stream.

                  If an entry lacks the information  needed  for  an  activity
                  above, that activity is silently skipped.

       reset      re-initializes   the   terminal.    A   reset  differs  from
                  initialization in two ways.

                  (1)  tput sets the terminal modes to a "sane" state,

                       o   enabling canonical ("cooked") and echo modes,

                       o   disabling cbreak and raw modes,

                       o   enabling newline translation, and

                       o   setting  any  special  input  characters  to  their
                           default values.

                  (2)  If  any reset capabilities are defined for the terminal
                       type,  tput  writes  them   to   the   output   stream.
                       Otherwise,   tput   uses   any  defined  initialization
                       capabilities.   Reset  capabilities  are  detailed   in
                       subsection "Tabs and Initialization" of terminfo(5).

       longname   A  terminfo  entry begins with one or more names by which an
                  application can refer to  the  entry,  before  the  list  of
                  terminal  capabilities.   The  names  are  separated  by "|"
                  characters.  X/Open Curses terms the  last  name  the  "long
                  name", and indicates that it may include blanks.

                  tic  warns  if  the  last  name  does not include blanks, to
                  accommodate old terminfo entries that treated the long  name
                  as  an optional feature.  The long name is often referred to
                  as the description field.

                  If the terminal database is present and  an  entry  for  the
                  user's terminal type exists, tput reports its description to
                  the standard output stream, without a trailing newline.  See
                  terminfo(5).

       Note:  Redirecting  the output of "tput init" or "tput reset" to a file
       will capture only part of their actions.  Changes to the terminal modes
       are  not  affected  by  file descriptor redirection, since the terminal
       modes are altered via ioctl(2).


Aliases

       If tput is invoked via link with any  of  the  names  clear,  init,  or
       reset, it operates as if run with the corresponding (pseudo-)capability
       operand.  For example, executing a link named reset that points to tput
       has the same effect as "tput reset".

       This feature was introduced by ncurses 5.2 in 2000.  It is rarely used.

       clear  is a separate program, which is both smaller and more frequently
              executed.

       init   has the same name as another program in widespread use.

       reset  is provided by the  tset(1)  utility  (also  via  a  link  named
              reset).


Terminal Size

       Besides  the  pseudo-capabilities (such as init), tput treats the lines
       and cols cap-codes specially: it may call setupterm(3x) to  obtain  the
       terminal size.

       o   First, tput attempts to obtain these capabilities from the terminal
           database.  This generally fails for terminal emulators, which  lack
           a fixed window size and thus omit the capabilities.

       o   It  then  asks  the operating system for the terminal's size, which
           generally works, unless the connection is via a  serial  line  that
           does not support "NAWS": negotiations about window size.

       o   Finally,  it  inspects the environment variables LINES and COLUMNS,
           which may override the terminal size.

       If the -T option is given, tput ignores the  environment  variables  by
       calling  use_tioctl(TRUE),  relying  upon  the  operating  system  (or,
       ultimately, the terminal database).


OPTIONS

       -S       retrieves more than one capability  per  invocation  of  tput.
                The  capabilities  must  be  passed  to tput from the standard
                input stream instead of from the  command  line  (see  section
                "EXAMPLES"  below).   Only  one  cap-code is allowed per line.
                The -S option changes  the  meanings  of  the  0  and  1  exit
                statuses (see section "EXIT STATUS" below).

                Some  capabilities  use  string parameters rather than numeric
                ones.  tput employs a  built-in  table  and  the  presence  of
                parameters  in  its input to decide how to interpret them, and
                whether to use tparm(3x).

       -T type  indicates  the  terminal's  type.   Normally  this  option  is
                unnecessary,   because  a  default  is  taken  from  the  TERM
                environment variable.  If specified, the environment variables
                LINES and COLUMNS are also ignored.

       -v       causes tput to operate verbosely, reporting warnings.

       -V       reports the version of ncurses associated with tput, and exits
                with a successful status.

       -x       prevents "tput clear" from attempting to clear the  scrollback
                buffer.


EXIT STATUS

       Normally, one should interpret tput's exit statuses as follows.

       Status   Meaning When -S Not Specified
       ------------------------------------------------------------------------
       0        Boolean or string capability present
       1        Boolean or numeric capability absent
       2        usage error or no terminal type specified
       3        unrecognized terminal type
       4        unrecognized capability code
       >4       system error (4 + errno)

       When the -S option is used, some statuses change meanings.

       Status   Meaning When -S Specified
       ------------------------------------------------------------------------
       0        all operands interpreted
       1        unused
       4        some operands not interpreted


ENVIRONMENT

       tput  reads  up  to three environment variables if the -T option is not
       specified.

       COLUMNS  specifies the width of the screen in characters.

       LINES    specifies the height of the screen in characters.

       TERM     denotes the terminal type.  Each terminal  type  is  distinct,
                though many are similar.


FILES

       /usr/share/tabset
              tab stop initialization database

       /usr/share/terminfo
              compiled terminal description database


PORTABILITY

       Over  time  ncurses  tput  has  differed  from  that of System V in two
       important respects, one now mostly historical.

       o   "tput cap-code" writes to the standard output, which need not be  a
           terminal  device.   However,  the operands that manipulate terminal
           modes might not use the standard output.

           System V tput's init and reset  operands  use  logic  from  4.1cBSD
           tset,  manipulating  terminal  modes.   It  checks  the  same  file
           descriptors (and /dev/tty) for association with a  terminal  device
           as  ncurses  now does, and if none are, finally assumes a 1200 baud
           terminal.  When updating terminal modes, it ignores errors.

           Until ncurses 6.1 (see  section  "HISTORY"  below),  tput  did  not
           modify  terminal  modes.   It  now  employs  a  scheme  similar  to
           System V, using functions shared with tset (and ultimately based on
           4.4BSD  tset).  If it is not able to open a terminal (for instance,
           when run by cron(1)), tput exits with an error status.

       o   System V tput assumes that  the  type  of  a  cap-code  operand  is
           numeric  if all the characters of its value are decimal numbers; if
           they are not, it treats cap-code as a string capability.

           Most implementations that provide support for cap-code operands use
           the  tparm(3x)  function  to  expand its parameters.  That function
           expects a mixture of numeric and string parameters, requiring  tput
           to know which type to use.

           ncurses  tput uses a table to determine the parameter types for the
           standard cap-code operands, and an  internal  function  to  analyze
           nonstandard cap-code operands.

           While  more reliable than System V's utility, a portability problem
           is introduced by this analysis.  An OpenBSD developer  adapted  the
           internal  library  function  from ncurses to port NetBSD's termcap-
           based tput to terminfo, and modified it to interpret multiple  cap-
           codes  (and parameters) on the command line.  Portable applications
           should not rely upon this feature; ncurses  offers  it  to  support
           applications written specifically for OpenBSD.

       This  implementation,  unlike others, accepts both termcap and terminfo
       cap-codes if termcap support is compiled in.  In  that  case,  however,
       the predefined termcap and terminfo codes have two ambiguities; ncurses
       assumes the terminfo code.

       o   The cap-code dl means delete_line to termcap  but  parm_delete_line
           to terminfo.  termcap uses the code DL for parm_delete_line.  term-
           info uses the code dl1 for delete_line.

       o   The cap-code ed means exit_delete_mode to termcap  but  clr_eos  to
           terminfo.  termcap uses the code cd for clr_eos.  terminfo uses the
           code rmdc for exit_delete_mode.

       The  longname  operand,  -S  option,  and  the   parameter-substitution
       features  used in the cup example below, were not supported in AT&T/USL
       curses before SVr4 (1989).  Later, 4.3BSD-Reno (1990) added support for
       longname,  and  in  1994,  NetBSD  added  support  for  the  parameter-
       substitution features.

       IEEE  Std   1003.1/The   Open   Group   Base   Specifications   Issue 7
       (POSIX.1-2008)  documents  only the clear, init, and reset operands.  A
       few observations of interest arise from that selection.

       o   ncurses supports clear as it does any other standard cap-code.  The
           others   (init   and   longname)  do  not  correspond  to  terminal
           capabilities.

       o   The tput on SVr4-based systems such as Solaris, IRIX64, and  HP-UX,
           as well as others such as AIX and Tru64, also support standard cap-
           code operands.

       o   A few platforms such as FreeBSD recognize termcap codes rather than
           terminfo capability codes in their respective tput commands.  Since
           2010, NetBSD's tput uses terminfo codes.   Before  that,  it  (like
           FreeBSD) recognized termcap codes.

           Beginning  in  2021, FreeBSD uses ncurses tput, configured for both
           terminfo (tested first) and termcap (as a fallback).

       Because (apparently) all certified Unix systems support the full set of
       capability  codes,  the  reason  for  documenting only a few may not be
       apparent.

       o   X/Open Curses Issue 7 documents tput differently, with cap-code and
           the other features used in this implementation.

       o   That  is,  there  are  two standards for tput: POSIX (a subset) and
           X/Open Curses (the full implementation).  POSIX documents a  subset
           to  avoid  the  complication  of  including  X/Open  Curses and the
           terminal capability database.

       o   While it is certainly possible to  write  a  tput  program  without
           using  curses,  no  system  with a curses implementation provides a
           tput utility that does not also support standard cap-codes.

       X/Open  Curses  Issue 7  (2009)  is  the  first  version  to   document
       utilities.  However that part of X/Open Curses does not follow existing
       practice (that is, System V curses behavior).

       o   It assigns exit status 4 to "invalid operand", which may  have  the
           same  meaning  as  "unknown  capability".  For instance, the source
           code for Solaris xcurses uses the term "invalid" in this case.

       o   It assigns exit status 255  to  a  numeric  variable  that  is  not
           specified in the terminfo database.  That likely is a documentation
           error, mistaking  the  "-1"  written  to  the  standard  output  to
           indicate an absent or canceled numeric capability for an (unsigned)
           exit status.

       The various System V implementations (AIX, HP-UX, Solaris) use the same
       exit statuses as ncurses.

       NetBSD  curses  documents  exit  statuses  that  correspond  to neither
       ncurses nor X/Open Curses.


HISTORY

       Bill Joy wrote a tput command during development  of  4BSD  in  October
       1980.   This  initial version only cleared the screen, and did not ship
       with official distributions.

       System V developed a different tput command.

       o   SVr2 (1984) provided a rudimentary tput that checked the  parameter
           against  each  predefined capability and returned the corresponding
           value.   This  version  of  tput  did   not   use   tparm(3x)   for
           parameterized capabilities.

       o   SVr3  (1987)  replaced  that  with  a  more extensive program whose
           support for init and reset operands (more than  half  the  program)
           incorporated the reset feature of BSD tset written by Eric Allman.

       o   SVr4  (1989)  added  color  initialization by using the orig_colors
           (oc) and orig_pair (op) capabilities in its init logic.

       Keith Bostic refactored BSD tput for shipment  in  4.3BSD-Reno  (1990),
       making  it  follow  the  interface  of  System V tput by accepting some
       parameters  named  for  terminfo  (pseudo-)capabilities:  clear,  init,
       longname,  and  reset.  However, because he had only termcap available,
       it accepted termcap codes for other capabilities.  Also,  Bostic's  BSD
       tput  did  not  modify  the  terminal modes as the earlier BSD tset had
       done.  At the same time, Bostic added a shell script named "clear" that
       used  tput  to  clear  the  screen.   These  became  the  "modern"  BSD
       implementation of tput.

       The origin of ncurses tput lies outside both System V and BSD, in  Ross
       Ridge's  mytinfo  package,  published  on comp.sources.unix in December
       1992.  Ridge's program made more  sophisticated  use  of  the  terminal
       capabilities than the BSD program.  Eric Raymond used that tput program
       (and other parts of mytinfo) in ncurses in  June  1995.   Incorporating
       the  portions dealing with terminal capabilities almost without change,
       Raymond made improvements  to  the  way  command-line  parameters  were
       handled.

       Before ncurses 6.1 (2018), its tset and tput utilities differed.

       o   tset was more effective, resetting the terminal's modes and special
           input characters.

       o   On the other hand, tset's repertoire of terminal  capabilities  for
           resetting the terminal was more limited; it had only equivalents of
           reset_1string (rs1), reset_2string (rs2), and reset_file (rf),  and
           not the tab stop and margin update features of tput.

       The reset program is traditionally an alias for tset due to its ability
       to reset the terminal's modes and special input characters.

       As of ncurses 6.1,  the  "reset"  features  of  the  two  programs  are
       (mostly) the same.  Two minor differences remain.

       o   When  issuing  a  reset, the tset program checks whether the device
           appears to be a pseudoterminal (as might  be  used  by  a  terminal
           emulator program), and, if it does not, waits one second in case it
           is communicating with a hardware terminal.

       o   The two programs  write  the  terminal  initialization  strings  to
           different  streams;  that  is, standard error for tset and standard
           output for tput.


EXAMPLES

       tput init
              Initialize the terminal according to the type of terminal in the
              TERM  environment  variable.   If  the  system does not reliably
              initialize the terminal upon login, this command can be included
              in $HOME/.profile after exporting the TERM environment variable.

       tput -T5620 reset
              Reset an AT&T 5620 terminal, overriding the terminal type in the
              TERM environment variable.

       tput cnorm
              Set cursor to normal visibility.

       tput home
              Move the cursor to line 0, column 0: the upper  left  corner  of
              the screen, usually known as the "home" cursor position.

       tput clear
              Clear  the  screen: write the clear_screen capability's value to
              the standard output stream.

       tput cols
              Report the number of columns used by the current terminal type.

       tput -Tadm3a cols
              Report the number of columns used by an ADM-3A terminal.

       strong=`tput smso` normal=`tput rmso`
              Set shell variables to capability values: strong and normal,  to
              begin  and  end,  respectively, stand-out mode for the terminal.
              One might use these to present a prompt.

                     printf "${strong}Username:${normal} "

       tput hc
              Indicate via exit status whether the terminal  is  a  hard  copy
              device.

       tput cup 23 4
              Move the cursor to line 23, column 4.

       tput cup
              Report  the  value  of the cursor_address (cup) capability (used
              for cursor movement), with no parameters substituted.

       tput longname
              Report the terminfo database's description of the terminal  type
              specified in the TERM environment variable.

       tput -S
              Process  multiple capabilities.  The -S option can be profitably
              used with a shell "here document".

              $ tput -S <<!
              > clear
              > cup 10 10
              > bold
              > !

              The foregoing clears the screen, moves the  cursor  to  position
              (10, 10) and turns on bold (extra bright) mode.

       tput clear cup 10 10 bold
              Perform the same actions as the foregoing "tput -S" example.


SEE ALSO

       clear(1),  stty(1),  tabs(1),  tset(1),  curs_termcap(3x), terminfo(5),
       user_caps(5)



ncurses 6.5                       2025-07-05                           tput(1)