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tput, clear – terminal capability interface

SYNOPSIS DESCRIPTION EXIT STATUS SEE ALSO STANDARDS HISTORY BUGS

clear [ -T term] attribute ...
clear

The clear utility makes terminal-dependent information available to users or shell applications. When invoked as the clear utility, the screen will be cleared as if

    tput clear

had been executed. The options to clear are as follows:

-T
	The terminal name as specified in the termcap(5) database, for example, "vt100" or "xterm". If not specified, clear retrieves the " TERM" variable from the environment.

The clear utility outputs a string for each attribute that is of type string; a number for each of type integer. Otherwise, clear 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" sequence) the arguments are taken from the command line immediately following the attribute.

The following special attributes are available:

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

The exit status of clear is as follows:

0	If the last attribute attribute argument is of type string or integer, its value was successfully written to standard output. If the argument is of type boolean, the terminal has this attribute.
1	This terminal does not have the specified boolean attribute.
2	Usage error.
3	No information is available about the specified terminal type.

The clear utility conforms to IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 ("POSIX.1").

The clear utility appeared in BSD 4.4 .

The clear 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.