tput
| Initial release | 1980s |
|---|---|
Cross-platform | |
| Type | Command |
In
Depending on the system, tput uses the terminfo or termcap database, as well as looking into the environment for the terminal type.
History
Tput was provided in UNIX System V in the early 1980s. A clone of the AT&T tput was submitted to volume 7 of the mod.sources newsgroup (later comp.sources.unix) in September 1986.[1][2] In contrast to the System V program, the clone used termcap rather than terminfo. It accepted command-line parameters for the cm (cursor addressing) capability, and recognized terminfo capability names.
System V Release 3 provided an improved version which combined the different initialization capabilities as a new option init, and the reset capabilities as reset, thereby simplifying use of tput for initializing or reinitializing the terminal.[3] System V Release 3.2 added several printer-specific capabilities to the terminfo database, such as swidm (enter_doublewide_mode) which tput could use. It also added capabilities for color.
setaf and setab, which could be used by tput.
Ross Ridge's mytinfo package in 1992[6] provided a tput which accepted either termcap or terminfo capability names. Like the Reno implementation, it did not pass command-line arguments to parameterized capabilities. ncurses incorporated the mytinfo code in June 1995. The initial version added a -S option, and interpreted command-line parameters as described in the System V Release 4 documentation.
Portability
The
-T, to specify the terminal type) and three keywords (init, clear and reset).
Most implementations accept the name of a terminal capability together with any parameters that may be needed for that.
However, some implementations expect a termcap name, while others expect a terminfo name.
All System V Release 4 implementations, as well as those which are designed to be compatible, also recognize a -S option (to tell tput to read data from the standard input), and an additional keyword longname. They also accept command-line parameters, usually distinguishing numeric from string parameters by the form of the parameter, checking for all-numeric characters. That makes it impossible for example to set a function-key label to a string of digits. Using a different approach, ncurses determines the expected type of the parameters with a table of the terminfo capabilities which use string parameters, eliminating the ambiguity.
See also
- List of Unix commands
References
- ^ Lokanathan, Badri (1986-08-28). "Public-domain tput(1) program". Retrieved 2008-04-22.
- ^ Lokanathan, Badri (1986-09-19). "Public-domain TPUT (corrected implementation)". Retrieved 2008-04-22.
- ISBN 0-937175-22-6.
- The Unix Heritage Society. 2000-06-25. Retrieved 2008-04-20.
- ^ "CVS log for src/usr.bin/tput/tput.c". May 27, 1994.
- ^ Ross Ridge (December 27, 1992). "mytinfo - a replacement for terminfo and termcap". Newsgroup: comp.sources.unix.
Further reading
- Tansley, D. S. W. (2000). "Creating screen output". Linux and UNIX shell programming. Safari Tech Books Online. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 978-0-201-67472-9.
External links
Manual pages
- – Shell and Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Version 4 from The Open Group
- – Linux User Manual – User Commands
- tput(1) manual page for ncurses
- AIX
- BSDI at the Wayback Machine (archived May 13, 2013)
- SCO
- HPUX at the Wayback Machine (archived March 4, 2016)
- SGI
- Sun
- Tru64 at the Wayback Machine (archived February 7, 2012)
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