NAME

tput, clear —

terminal capability interface

SYNOPSIS

tput [-T term] [attribute ...]

clear

DESCRIPTION

The tput utility makes terminal-dependent information available to users or shell applications.

The clear utility executes the

tput clear

command, ignoring any arguments.

The only option to tput is:

-T: The terminal name as specified in the termcap(5) database, for example, “vt100” or “xterm”. If not specified, tput retrieves the “TERM” variable from the environment unless that too is not specified, in which case an error message will be sent to standard error and the error status will be 2.

The tput utility outputs a string for each attribute that is of type string; a number for each of type integer. Otherwise, tput exits 0 if the terminal has the capability and 1 if it does not, without further action.

If an attribute is of type string, and takes arguments (e.g. cursor movement, the termcap “cm” capability) the arguments are taken from the command line immediately following the attribute.

The following special attributes are available. The first three use the capabilities of the specified terminal, and only work if compatible with the utility's terminal.

clear: Clear the screen (the termcap(5) “cl” capability).
init: Initialize the terminal (the termcap(5) “is” capability).
reset: Reset the terminal (the termcap(5) “rs” capability).
longname: Print the descriptive name of the user's terminal type.

ENVIRONMENT

TERM: The terminal name, if set and -T is not used.

EXIT STATUS

The exit status of tput is as follows:

0: If the last attribute is of type string or integer, its value was successfully written to standard output. If the attribute is of type boolean, the terminal does have the attribute. Otherwise, no attribute was specified.
1: If the last attribute is of type boolean, this terminal does not have the attribute.
2: Usage error. For example, see -T description.
3: No information is available about the specified terminal type.

STANDARDS

The tput utility conforms to IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (“POSIX.1”).

HISTORY

The tput utility appeared in 4.4BSD.

BUGS

The tput utility cannot really distinguish between different types of attributes.

Some termcap entries depend upon having a ‘%’ in them that is just a ‘%’ and nothing more. Right now we just warn about them if they do not have a valid type declaration. These warnings are sent to stderr.