Ubuntu Manpage: resize - set environment and terminal settings to current xterm window size

NAME

       resize - set environment and terminal settings to current xterm window size

SYNOPSIS

       resize [ -v | -u | -c ] [ -s [ row col ] ]

DESCRIPTION

Resize prints a shell command for setting the appropriate environment variables to indicate the current
size of xterm window from which the command is run.

Resize determines the command through several steps:

• first, it finds the name of the user's shell program. It uses the SHELL variable if set, otherwise
it uses the user's data from /etc/passwd.

• then it decides whether to use Bourne shell syntax or C-Shell syntax. It uses a built-in table of
known shells, which can be overridden by the -u and -c options.

• then resize asks the operating system for the terminal settings. This is the same information which
can be manipulated using stty.

• then resize asks the terminal for its size in characters. Depending on whether the "-s option is
given, resize uses a different escape sequence to ask for this information.

• at this point, resize attempts to update the terminal settings to reflect the terminal window's size
in pixels:

• if the -s option is used, resize then asks the terminal for its size in pixels.

• otherwise, resize asks the operating system for the information and updates that after ensuring
that the window's dimensions are a multiple of the character height and width.

• in either case, the updated terminal settings are done using a different system call than used
for stty.

• then resize updates the terminal settings to reflect any altered values such as its size in rows or
columns. This affects the values shown by stty.

• finally, resize generates shell commands for setting the environment variables, and writes that to
the standard output.

OPTIONS

The following options may be used with resize:

-c This option indicates that C shell commands should be generated even if the user's current shell
does not appear to use C shell syntax.

-s [rows columns]
This option indicates that Sun console escape sequences will be used instead of the VT100-style
xterm escape codes. If rows and columns are given, resize will ask the xterm to resize itself
using those values.

Both of the escape sequences used for this option (first to obtain the window size and second to
modify it) are subject to xterm's allowWindowOps resource setting. The window manager may also
choose to disallow the change.

The VT100-style escape sequence used to determine the screen size always works for
VT100-compatible terminals. VT100s have no corresponding way to modify the screensize.

-u This option indicates that Bourne shell commands should be generated even if the user's current
shell does not appear to use Bourne shell syntax.

-v This causes resize to print a version number to the standard output, and then exit.

Note that the Sun console escape sequences are recognized by XFree86 xterm and by dtterm. The resize
program may be installed as sunsize, which causes makes it assume the -s option.

The rows and columns arguments must appear last; though they are normally associated with the -s option,
they are parsed separately.

ENVIRONMENT

       SHELL          Unless overridden by the -c option, resize determines the user's current shell by

                      •   first checking if $SHELL is set, and using that,

                      •   otherwise resize looks in the password file (/etc/passwd).

                      Generally Bourne-shell variants (including ksh) do not modify $SHELL, so  it  is  possible
                      for resize to be confused if one runs resize from a Bourne shell spawned from a C shell.

                      After  determining  the  user's  shell, resize  checks the shell's name against a table of
                      known shell names.  If it does not find the name in its table, resize  will  use  C  shell
                      syntax for the generated commands to set environment variables.

       TERM           Resize's generated shell command sets this to "xterm" if not already set.

       TERMCAP        Resize's  generated  shell command sets this variable on systems using termcap, e.g., when
                      resize is linked with the termcap library rather than a terminfo library.  The latter does
                      not provide the complete text for a termcap entry.

       COLUMNS, LINES Resize's  generated  shell  command  sets these variables on systems using terminfo.  Many
                      applications (including the curses library) use those variables when set to override their
                      screensize.

FILES

       /etc/termcap   for the base termcap entry to modify.

       ~/.cshrc       user's alias for the command.

EXAMPLES

       For  resize's output to take effect, resize must either be evaluated as part of the command line (usually
       done with a shell alias or function) or else redirected to a file which can then be read in.  From the  C
       shell (usually known as /bin/csh), the following alias could be defined in the user's .cshrc:

           % alias rs 'set noglob; eval `resize`'

       After resizing the window, the user would type:

           % rs

       Users  of  versions of the Bourne shell (usually known as /bin/sh) that don't have command functions will
       need to send the output to a temporary file and then read it back in with the “.” command:

           $ resize > /tmp/out
           $ . /tmp/out

AUTHORS

       Mark Vandevoorde (MIT-Athena), Edward Moy (Berkeley)
       Thomas Dickey (invisible-island.net).
       Copyright (c) 1984, 1985 by X Consortium
       See X(7) for a complete copyright notice.