capture Command

Purpose

Allows terminal screens to be dumped to a file.

Syntax

capture [ -a ] [ File ]

Description

The capture command allows a user to dump everything printed on the user's terminal to a file. The screen is printed to the file specified by the File parameter or to the screen.out file if no file is specified. If the -a flag is specified, the capture command appends the contents of the screen to the file.

In order to dump the screen to a file, the capture command creates a shell that emulates a VT100 terminal and maintains a record of what is being displayed on the screen. The SHELL environment variable determines the shell created. If the SHELL environment variable is not set, the /usr/bin/bsh shell is the default. The TERM environment variable is set to TERM=vt100. If, while running the capture command, the program asks for the terminal type in use, the user must enter vt100.

The Ctrl-P key sequence is the default keystroke to cause a screen dump to be performed. This can be changed by setting the SCREENDUMP environment variable to the 3-digit octal value of the desired screen dump key. For example, setting:

SCREENDUMP=014

changes the screen dump keystroke to Ctrl-L. Trying to set the SCREENDUMP environment variable by entering ^L or '\014' results in an error message.

To stop the screen capture process, use the Ctrl-D key sequence or type exit. The system displays the message, You are NO LONGER emulating a vt100 terminal.

Flags

Files