screen: Startup Files
4.1 The '.screenrc' file
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When 'screen' is invoked, it executes initialization commands from the
files '.screenrc' in the user's home directory and '/etc/screenrc'.
These defaults can be overridden in the following ways: For the global
screenrc file 'screen' searches for the environment variable
'$SYSSCREENRC' (this override feature may be disabled at compile-time).
The user specific screenrc file is searched for in '$SCREENRC', then
'$HOME/.screenrc'. The command line option '-c' specifies which file to
use (⇒Invoking Screen). Commands in these files are used to set
options, bind commands to keys, and to automatically establish one or
more windows at the beginning of your 'screen' session. Commands are
listed one per line, with empty lines being ignored. A command's
arguments are separated by tabs or spaces, and may be surrounded by
single or double quotes. A '#' turns the rest of the line into a
comment, except in quotes. Unintelligible lines are warned about and
ignored. Commands may contain references to environment variables. The
syntax is the shell-like '$VAR' or '${VAR}'. Note that this causes
incompatibility with previous 'screen' versions, as now the
'$'-character has to be protected with '\' if no variable substitution
is intended. A string in single-quotes is also protected from variable
substitution.
Two configuration files are shipped as examples with your screen
distribution: 'etc/screenrc' and 'etc/etcscreenrc'. They contain a
number of useful examples for various commands.
Info Catalog
screen: Customization
screen: Source