Shell Programming and Scripting

What is the difference between these two commands?


tput clear

/usr/bin/clear

In terms of functionality, I'm fairly sure they perform exactly the same, which is to query the terminfo database for the current terminal (determined by reading the TERM variable), and then echoing the correct clear screen sequence.

From "man clear"

clears the terminal screen if it is possible to do so. It reads
the TERM environment variable for the terminal type, then reads the
appropriate terminfo database to determine how to clear the screen.


From "man tput | the bit about clear"

Echo the clear-screen sequence for the current terminal.


In terms of the programs themselves, "clear" will do just that, whereas "tput" will perform a wide variety of terminal control commands.

Cheers
ZB

Where is this database save at ?
I came from Windows side. Just curious to see how unix manage it's database....

'query the terminfo database '


Also, how do I read TERM variable?
I typied TERM on the screen, it says:
bash: TERM: command not found

To see what TERM is currently set to, type
echo $TERM

Terminfo DB
/usr/share/terminfo/*/* (or /usr/share/lib/terminfo/?/*)

Terminal configuration file....
/etc/termcap

I'd suggest having a read through "man 5 terminfo" on Linux (man 4 terminfo on HP-UX)
/usr/share/terminfo/*/* hierarchy contains the terminfo database itself.


Cheers
ZB

terminfo is compiled and looking at the entries directly won't provide much information. Use untic. To see the vt100 entry:
untic vt100