Manual: resize

RESIZE(1)					       X Window System						   RESIZE(1)

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 ma‐
	   nipulated 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 win‐
	       dow'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 ap‐
	       pear 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  termi‐
	       nals.  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	com‐
		      plete 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.

SEE ALSO
       use_env(3x)
       csh(1), stty(1), tset(1)
       xterm(1)

Patch #407						 2026-02-16						   RESIZE(1)