TERM Variable

ACUCOBOL-GT determines the type of terminal you are using by looking at the setting of the "TERM" variable. On UNIX and Linux machines, TERM is an environment variable; on VMS machines, it's a symbol. Samples for both UNIX and VMS are presented below.

TERM should be set to the name of one of the entries in the terminal database. You can examine the database file for valid names. The first field of each entry consists of a list of accepted names. Some common names are "vt100", "tv925", and "wy50" for VT100, Televideo 925, and Wyse 50 terminals, respectively.

Note that on most UNIX systems, the TERM environment variable is initialized as part of the login procedure. You will need to change this only if the name used is not one listed in the terminal database. On VMS systems, the TERM symbol defaults to "vt100" if it is not defined. Thus, you need to define the TERM symbol only if you want to use a terminal that is not VT100 compatible or if you want to use some advanced features of your terminal.

As an example, suppose you want to use a VT220 terminal. In the database, "vt220" is one of the accepted names for this type of terminal. On a VMS system, you would use the following command

TERM == "vt220"

On UNIX systems with the Bourne or Korn shell, the command would be:

TERM=vt200; export TERM

Using the C shell, the equivalent command is:

setenv TERM vt220

You may want to leave the TERM variable at its current setting to maintain compatibility with other software. If the setting is not correct for ACUCOBOL-GT, you can set the "A_TERM" variable instead. If both the A_TERM and TERM variables are set, ACUCOBOL-GT uses the definition of A_TERM. This allows you to have different settings for ACUCOBOL-GT and your other software.