1 \cfg{man-identity}{beep}{1}{2006-02-15}{Simon Tatham}{Simon Tatham}
3 \define{dash} \u2013{-}
5 \title Man page for \c{beep}
9 \c{beep} \dash produce a beeping noise, by any available method
13 \c beep [ -v ] [ -X | -T | -S ]
18 \c{beep} is a command-line utility for making a computer go beep.
20 Under normal circumstances, you should be able to use it just by
21 typing \cq{beep}, with no options.
23 The traditional method of producing a beep in a shell script is to
24 write an ASCII BEL (\cw{\\007}) character to standard output, by
25 means of a shell command such as \cq{echo -ne '\\007'}. This only
26 works if the calling shell's standard output is currently directed
27 to a terminal device of some sort; if not, the beep will produce no
28 sound and might even cause unwanted corruption in whatever file the
29 output is directed to.
31 There are other ways to cause a beeping noise. A slightly more
32 reliable method is to open \cw{/dev/tty} and send your BEL character
33 there. This is robust against I/O redirection, but still fails in
34 the case where the shell script wishing to generate a beep does not
35 \e{have} a controlling terminal, for example because it is run from
38 A third approach is to connect to your X display and send it a bell
39 command. This does not depend on a Unix terminal device, but does
40 (of course) require an X display.
42 The \c{beep} command supports all these methods of generating a
43 beep, and will try them in order until one works. Its order of
44 preference is to use the X server, then to fall back to
45 \cw{/dev/tty}, and if all else fails it will simply write a BEL to
52 \dd Restricts \c{beep} to only using the X server to generate its
53 beep. If there is no X server available, no beep will be generated
54 and \c{beep} will return failure.
58 \dd Restricts \c{beep} to only using \cw{/dev/tty} to generate its
59 beep. If \cw{/dev/tty} cannot be opened or written to, no beep will
60 be generated and \c{beep} will return failure.
64 \dd Restricts \c{beep} to only using standard output to generate its
65 beep. If its standard output cannot be written to, no beep will be
66 generated and \c{beep} will return failure.
70 \dd Causes \c{beep} to log everything it did even if it succeeds. By
71 default, error messages will only be output if none of the available
72 beep methods succeeded.
76 \c{beep} will return a success (0) status if it thinks it
77 successfully beeped, and failure (1) otherwise.
81 None known at present.
85 \cw{beep} is free software, distributed under the MIT licence. Type
86 \cw{beep --licence} to see the full licence text.