WHIPTAIL(1) General Commands Manual WHIPTAIL(1)
NAME
whiptail - display dialog boxes from shell scripts
SYNOPSIS
whiptail [ --title title ] [ --backtitle backtitle ] [ --clear ] [ --default-item string ] [ --defaultno ] [
--fb ] [ --nocancel ] [ --yes-button text ] [ --no-button text ] [ --ok-button text ] [ --cancel-button text ]
[ --noitem [ ] --output-fd fd ] [ --separate-output ] [ --scrolltext ] [ --topleft ] box-options
DESCRIPTION
whiptail is a program that will let you present a variety of questions or display messages using dialog boxes
from a shell script. Currently, these types of dialog boxes are implemented:
yes/no box, menu box, input box, message box, text box, info box, checklist box, radiolist box gauge box, and
password box.
OPTIONS
--clear
The screen will be cleared to the screen attribute on exit. This doesn't work in an xterm (and descen‐
dants) if alternate screen switching is enabled, because in that case slang writes to (and clears) an
alternate screen.
--defaultno
The dialog box will open with the cursor over the No button.
--default-item string
Set the default item in a menu box. Normally the first item in the box is the default.
--fb, --fullbuttons
Use full buttons. (By default, whiptail uses compact buttons).
--nocancel
The dialog box won't have a Cancel button.
--yes-button text
Set the text of the Yes button.
--no-button text
Set the text of the No button.
--ok-button text
Set the text of the Ok button.
--cancel-button text
Set the text of the Cancel button.
--noitem
The menu, checklist and radiolist widgets will display tags only, not the item strings. The menu widget
still needs some items specified, but checklist and radiolist expect only tag and status.
--notags
Don't display tags in the menu, checklist and radiolist widgets.
--separate-output
For checklist widgets, output result one line at a time, with no quoting. This facilitates parsing by
another program.
--topleft
Put window in top-left corner.
-h, --help
Print a help message and exit.
-v, --version
Print version information and exit.
Box Options
--yesno text height width
A yes/no dialog box of size height rows by width columns will be displayed. The string specified by
text is displayed inside the dialog box. If this string is too long to be fit in one line, it will be
automatically divided into multiple lines at appropriate places. The text string may also contain the
sub-string "\n" or newline characters `\n' to control line breaking explicitly. This dialog box is
useful for asking questions that require the user to answer either yes or no. The dialog box has a Yes
button and a No button, in which the user can switch between by pressing the TAB key.
--msgbox text height width
A message box is very similar to a yes/no box. The only difference between a message box and a yes/no
box is that a message box has only a single OK button. You can use this dialog box to display any mes‐
sage you like. After reading the message, the user can press the ENTER key so that whiptail will exit
and the calling shell script can continue its operation.
--infobox text height width
An info box is basically a message box. However, in this case, whiptail will exit immediately after
displaying the message to the user. The screen is not cleared when whiptail exits, so that the message
will remain on the screen until the calling shell script clears it later. This is useful when you want
to inform the user that some operations are carrying on that may require some time to finish.
--inputbox text height width [init]
An input box is useful when you want to ask questions that require the user to input a string as the
answer. If init is supplied it is used to initialize the input string. When inputing the string, the
BACKSPACE key can be used to correct typing errors. If the input string is longer than the width of the
dialog box, the input field will be scrolled. On exit, the input string will be printed on stderr.
--passwordbox text height width [init]
A password box is similar to an input box, except the text the user enters is not displayed. This is
useful when prompting for passwords or other sensitive information. Be aware that if anything is passed
in "init", it will be visible in the system's process table to casual snoopers. Also, it is very con‐
fusing to the user to provide them with a default password they cannot see. For these reasons, using
"init" is highly discouraged.
--textbox file height width
A text box lets you display the contents of a text file in a dialog box. It is like a simple text file
viewer. The user can move through the file by using the UP/DOWN, PGUP/PGDN and HOME/END keys available
on most keyboards. If the lines are too long to be displayed in the box, the LEFT/RIGHT keys can be
used to scroll the text region horizontally. For more convenience, forward and backward searching func‐
tions are also provided.
--menu text height width menu-height [ tag item ] ...
As its name suggests, a menu box is a dialog box that can be used to present a list of choices in the
--radiolist text height width list-height [ tag item status ] ...
A radiolist box is similar to a menu box. The only difference is that you can indicate which entry is
currently selected, by setting its status to on.
--gauge text height width percent
A gauge box displays a meter along the bottom of the box. The meter indicates a percentage. New per‐
centages are read from standard input, one integer per line. The meter is updated to reflect each new
percentage. If stdin is XXX, the first following line is a percentage and subsequent lines up to
another XXX are used for a new prompt. The gauge exits when EOF is reached on stdin.
NOTES
whiptail interprets arguments starting with a dash "-" as being arguments. To avoid this, and start some text
in, for example, a menubox item, with a dash, whiptail honours the getopt convention of accepting the special
argument "--" which means that all following arguments with dashes are to be treated verbatim and not parsed
as options.
DIAGNOSTICS
Exit status is 0 if whiptail is exited by pressing the Yes or OK button, and 1 if the No or Cancel button is
pressed. Otherwise, if errors occur inside whiptail or whiptail is exited by pressing the ESC key, the exit
status is -1.
AUTHOR
Based on the man page for dialog(1) by:
Savio Lam ([email protected]) - version 0.3
Stuart Herbert ([email protected]) - patch for version 0.4
Modifications for whiptail by:
Enrique Zanardi ([email protected])
Alastair McKinstry ([email protected])
Whiptail Version 0.52.5 31 January 2007 WHIPTAIL(1)
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