NAME

     ul — do underlining

SYNOPSIS

     ul [-i] [-t terminal] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION

     The ul utility reads the named files (or standard input if none are given) and translates
     occurrences of underscores to the sequence which indicates underlining for the terminal in
     use, as specified by the environment variable TERM.  The file /etc/termcap is read to
     determine the appropriate sequences for underlining.  If the terminal is incapable of
     underlining, but is capable of a standout mode then that is used instead.  If the terminal
     can overstrike, or handles underlining automatically, ul degenerates to cat(1).  If the
     terminal cannot underline, underlining is ignored.  During the translation some other
     special characters also get translated.  E.g. TAB gets expanded to spaces.

     The following options are available:

     -i      Underlining is indicated by a separate line containing appropriate dashes ‘-’; this
             is useful when you want to look at the underlining which is present in an nroff(1)
             output stream on a CRT-terminal.

     -t terminal
             Overrides the terminal type specified in the environment with terminal.

ENVIRONMENT

     The LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE and TERM environment variables affect the execution of ul as
     described in environ(7).

EXIT STATUS

     The ul utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

SEE ALSO

     colcrt(1), man(1), nroff(1)

HISTORY

     The ul command appeared in 3.0BSD.

BUGS

     The nroff(1) command usually outputs a series of backspaces and underlines intermixed with
     the text to indicate underlining.  No attempt is made to optimize the backward motion.