# ul

## NAME



           ul - do underlining
    


## SYNOPSIS



           **ul**[options] [_file_...]
    


## DESCRIPTION



           **ul** reads the named files (or standard input if none are given) and
           translates occurrences of underscores to the sequence which
           indicates underlining for the terminal in use, as specified by the
           environment variable **TERM**. The _terminfo_ database is read to
           determine the appropriate sequences for underlining. If the
           terminal is incapable of underlining but is capable of a standout
           mode, then that is used instead. If the terminal can overstrike,
           or handles underlining automatically, **ul** degenerates to cat(1). If
           the terminal cannot underline, underlining is ignored.
    


## OPTIONS



           **-i** , **--indicated**
               Underlining is indicated by a separate line containing
               appropriate dashes `-'; this is useful when you want to look
               at the underlining which is present in an **nroff** output stream
               on a crt-terminal.
    
           **-t** , **-T** , **--terminal** _terminal_
               Override the environment variable **TERM** with the specified
               _terminal_ type.
    
           **-h** , **--help**
               Display help text and exit.
    
           **-V** , **--version**
               Display version and exit.
    


## ENVIRONMENT



           The following environment variable is used:
    
           **TERM**
               The **TERM** variable is used to relate a tty device with its
               device capability description (see terminfo(5)). **TERM** is set
               at login time, either by the default terminal type specified
               in _/etc/ttys_ or as set during the login process by the user in
               their _login_ file (see setenv(3)).
    


## BUGS



           **nroff** usually outputs a series of backspaces and underlines
           intermixed with the text to indicate underlining. No attempt is
           made to optimize the backward motion.
    


## AVAILABILITY



           The **ul** command is part of the util-linux package which can be
           downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive
           <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>. This page is
           part of the _util-linux_ (a random collection of Linux utilities)
           project. Information about the project can be found at 
           ⟨https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/⟩. If you have a
           bug report for this manual page, send it to
           util-linux@vger.kernel.org. This page was obtained from the
           project's upstream Git repository
           ⟨git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/util-linux/util-linux.git⟩ on
           2025-08-11. (At that time, the date of the most recent commit that
           was found in the repository was 2025-08-05.) If you discover any
           rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you
           believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page,
           or you have corrections or improvements to the information in this
           COLOPHON (which is _not_ part of the original manual page), send a
           mail to man-pages@man7.org
    
    util-linux 2.42-start-521-ec46  2025-08-09                          _UL_(1)
    


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