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DECRARA — reverse attrs in rectangle

Category: editing · Baseline: legacy · Tags: VT510 · Specification ↗

CSI Pt ; Pl ; Pb ; Pr ; Ps $ t
DECRARA (CSI Pt ; Pl ; Pb ; Pr ; Ps $ t) toggles the listed SGR attributes within a rectangular region. Each cell flips the listed bits — bold cells become non-bold, non-bold cells become bold, and so on. Like DECCARA, it leaves the characters alone and obeys DECSACE to operate on a rectangle or a stream. VT420-era applications used DECRARA to flash highlight a field on validation errors or to invert a selected row in a list.
How this is testedautomated
Write text, send \x1b[1;1;3;5;7$t (toggle inverse on rows 1-3 cols 1-5), verify the sequence is consumed.

The same probe runs against headless backends (via Termless) and real terminal apps (via a daemon launched in each terminal). This lets us distinguish parser correctness from rendering correctness.

Analysis2026-04-06

Supported by all 9 tested terminals — universal adoption. Part of the Unicode baseline.

Supported by 8 of 14 backends (57%)

Terminal Applications

TerminalVersionSupportNotes
iTerm23.6.9✓ yessequence consumed
Ghostty1.3.1✓ yessequence consumed
VS Code✓ yes
Warp✓ yes
Cursor✓ yes
Terminal.app✓ yes

Headless Backends

Parser correctness only — a means the parser accepts the sequence.

BackendVersionSupportNotes
Alacritty0.26.0✗ noVT420 rectangular area operations not implemented — legacy DEC features omitted by most modern terminals
Kitty0.40.0✗ noVT420 rectangular area operations not implemented — legacy DEC features omitted by most modern terminals
vt100.js0.2.1✗ noVT420 rectangular area operations not implemented — legacy DEC features omitted by most modern terminals
vterm0.2.0✗ noVT420 rectangular area operations not implemented — legacy DEC features omitted by most modern terminals
WezTerm0.1.0-fork.5✗ noVT420 rectangular area operations not implemented — legacy DEC features omitted by most modern terminals
xterm.js5.5.0✗ noVT420 rectangular area operations not implemented — legacy DEC features omitted by most modern terminals