\cfg{man-identity}{beep}{1}{2006-02-15}{Simon Tatham}{Simon Tatham}

\title Man page for \c{beep}

\U NAME

\c{beep} - produce a beeping noise, by any available method

\U SYNOPSIS

\c beep [ -v ] [ -X | -T | -S ]
\e bbbb   bb     bb   bb   bb

\U DESCRIPTION

\c{beep} is a command-line utility for making a computer go beep.

Under normal circumstances, you should be able to use it just by
typing \cq{beep}, with no options.

The traditional method of producing a beep in a shell script is to
write an ASCII BEL (\cw{\\007}) character to standard output, by
means of a shell command such as \cq{echo -ne '\\007'}. This only
works if the calling shell's standard output is currently directed
to a terminal device of some sort; if not, the beep will produce no
sound and might even cause unwanted corruption in whatever file the
output is directed to.

There are other ways to cause a beeping noise. A slightly more
reliable method is to open \cw{/dev/tty} and send your BEL character
there. This is robust against I/O redirection, but still fails in
the case where the shell script wishing to generate a beep does not
\e{have} a controlling terminal, for example because it is run from
an X window manager.

A third approach is to connect to your X display and send it a bell
command. This does not depend on a Unix terminal device, but does
(of course) require an X display.

The \c{beep} command supports all these methods of generating a
beep, and will try them in order until one works. Its order of
preference is to use the X server, then to fall back to
\cw{/dev/tty}, and if all else fails it will simply write a BEL to
its standard output.

\U OPTIONS

\dt \cw{-X}

\dd Restricts \c{beep} to only using the X server to generate its
beep. If there is no X server available, no beep will be generated
and \c{beep} will return failure.

\dt \cw{-T}

\dd Restricts \c{beep} to only using \cw{/dev/tty} to generate its
beep. If \cw{/dev/tty} cannot be opened or written to, no beep will
be generated and \c{beep} will return failure.

\dt \cw{-S}

\dd Restricts \c{beep} to only using standard output to generate its
beep. If its standard output cannot be written to, no beep will be
generated and \c{beep} will return failure.

\dt \cw{-v}

\dd Causes \c{beep} to log everything it did even if it succeeds. By
default, error messages will only be output if none of the available
beep methods succeeded.

\U EXIT STATUS

\c{beep} will return a success (0) status if it thinks it
successfully beeped, and failure (1) otherwise.

\U BUGS

None known at present.

\U LICENCE

\cw{beep} is free software, distributed under the MIT licence. Type
\cw{beep --licence} to see the full licence text.

\versionid $Id$