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TERM(7)                                                                                              TERM(7)



NAME
       term - conventions for naming terminal types

DESCRIPTION
       The  environment variable TERM should normally contain the type name of the terminal, console or dis-play-device display-device
       play-device type you are using.  This information  is  critical  for  all  screen-oriented  programs,
       including your editor and mailer.

       A  default TERM value will be set on a per-line basis by either /etc/inittab (Linux and System-V-like
       UNIXes) or /etc/ttys (BSD UNIXes).  This will nearly always suffice for workstation and microcomputer
       consoles.

       If  you  use a dialup line, the type of device attached to it may vary.  Older UNIX systems pre-set a
       very dumb terminal type like `dumb' or `dialup' on dialup lines.  Newer  ones  may  pre-set  `vt100',
       reflecting the prevalence of DEC VT100-compatible terminals and personal-computer emulators.

       Modern  telnets pass your TERM environment variable from the local side to the remote one.  There can
       be problems if the remote terminfo or termcap entry for your type is not compatible with  yours,  but
       this situation is rare and can almost always be avoided by explicitly exporting `vt100' (assuming you
       are in fact using a VT100-superset console, terminal, or terminal emulator.)

       In any case, you are free to override the system TERM setting to your taste in  your  shell  profile.
       The tset(1) utility may be of assistance; you can give it a set of rules for deducing or requesting a
       terminal type based on the tty device and baud rate.

       Setting your own TERM value may also be useful if you  have  created  a  custom  entry  incorporating
       options (such as visual bell or reverse-video) which you wish to override the system default type for
       your line.

       Terminal type descriptions are stored as files of capability data underneath /usr/share/terminfo.  To
       browse a list of all terminal names recognized by the system, do

            toe | more

       from your shell.  These capability files are in a binary format optimized for retrieval speed (unlike
       the old text-based termcap format they replace); to examine an entry, you  must  use  the  infocmp(1)
       command.  Invoke it as follows:

            infocmp entry-name

       where entry-name is the name of the type you wish to examine (and the name of its capability file the
       subdirectory of /usr/share/terminfo named for its first letter).  This  command  dumps  a  capability
       file in the text format described by terminfo(5).

       The first line of a terminfo(5) description gives the names by which terminfo knows a terminal, sepa-rated separated
       rated by `|' (pipe-bar) characters with the last name field terminated by a comma.   The  first  name
       field  is  the type's primary name, and is the one to use when setting TERM.  The last name field (if
       distinct from the first) is actually a description of the terminal type (it may contain  blanks;  the
       others  must  be  single words).  Name fields between the first and last (if present) are aliases for
       the terminal, usually historical names retained for compatibility.

       There are some conventions for how to choose terminal primary names that help keep  them  informative
       and unique.  Here is a step-by-step guide to naming terminals that also explains how to parse them:

       First,  choose  a  root  name.   The root will consist of a lower-case letter followed by up to seven
       lower-case letters or digits.  You need to avoid using punctuation characters in root names,  because
       they  are  used  and  interpreted  as  filenames and shell meta-characters (such as !, $, *, ?, etc.)
       embedded in them may cause odd and unhelpful behavior.  The slash (/), or any  other  character  that
       may  be  interpreted by anyone's file system (\, $, [, ]), is especially dangerous (terminfo is plat-form-independent, platform-independent,
       form-independent, and choosing names with special characters could someday make  life  difficult  for
       users  of  a  future port).  The dot (.) character is relatively safe as long as there is at most one
       per root name; some historical terminfo names use it.

       The root name for a terminal or workstation console type should almost always  begin  with  a  vendor
       prefix  (such as hp for Hewlett-Packard, wy for Wyse, or att for AT&T terminals), or a common name of
       the terminal line (vt for the VT series of terminals from DEC, or sun for Sun  Microsystems  worksta-tion workstation
       tion consoles, or regent for the ADDS Regent series.  You can list the terminfo tree to see what pre-fixes prefixes
       fixes are already in common use.  The root name prefix should be followed when appropriate by a model
       number; thus vt100, hp2621, wy50.

       The  root  name for a PC-Unix console type should be the OS name, i.e. linux, bsdos, freebsd, netbsd.
       It should not be console or any other generic that might cause confusion in a multi-platform environ-ment! environment!
       ment!   If  a  model  number  follows,  it should indicate either the OS release level or the console
       driver release level.

       The root name for a terminal emulator (assuming it doesn't fit one of  the  standard  ANSI  or  vt100
       types)  should  be  the  program  name  or a readily recognizable abbreviation of it (i.e. versaterm,
       ctrm).

       Following the root name, you may add any reasonable number of hyphen-separated feature suffixes.

       2p   Has two pages of memory.  Likewise 4p, 8p, etc.

       mc   Magic-cookie.  Some terminals (notably older Wyses)  can  only  support  one  attribute  without
            magic-cookie  lossage.  Their base entry is usually paired with another that has this suffix and
            uses magic cookies to support multiple attributes.

       -am  Enable auto-margin (right-margin wraparound).

       -m   Mono mode - suppress color support.

       -na  No arrow keys - termcap ignores arrow keys which are actually there on the terminal, so the user
            can use the arrow keys locally.

       -nam No auto-margin - suppress am capability.

       -nl  No labels - suppress soft labels.

       -nsl No status line - suppress status line.

       -pp  Has a printer port which is used.

       -rv  Terminal in reverse video mode (black on white).

       -s   Enable status line.

       -vb  Use visible bell (flash) rather than beep.

       -w   Wide; terminal is in 132 column mode.

       Conventionally,  if  your  terminal  type is a variant intended to specify a line height, that suffix
       should go first.  So, for a hypothetical FuBarCo model 2317 terminal in  30-line  mode  with  reverse
       video, best form would be fubar-30-rv (rather than, say, `fubar-rv-30').

       Terminal  types  that  are  written not as standalone entries, but rather as components to be plugged
       into other entries via use capabilities, are distinguished by using embedded plus signs  rather  than
       dashes.

       Commands  which use a terminal type to control display often accept a -T option that accepts a termi-nal terminal
       nal name argument.  Such programs should fall back on the TERM environment variable when no -T option
       is specified.

PORTABILITY
       For  maximum  compatibility with older System V UNIXes, names and aliases should be unique within the
       first 14 characters.

FILES
       /usr/share/terminfo/?/*
            compiled terminal capability data base

       /etc/inittab
            tty line initialization (AT&T-like UNIXes)

       /etc/ttys
            tty line initialization (BSD-like UNIXes)

SEE ALSO
       curses(3X), terminfo(5), term(5).



                                                                                                     TERM(7)

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