Get terminal size in Go

Question

How to get tty size with Golang? I am trying do this with executing stty size command, but I can't craft code right.

package main

import (
  "os/exec"
  "fmt"
  "log"
)

func main() {
  out, err := exec.Command("stty", "size").Output()
  fmt.Printf("out: %#v\n", out)
  fmt.Printf("err: %#v\n", err)
  if err != nil {
    log.Fatal(err)
  }
}

Output:

out: []byte{}
err: &exec.ExitError{ProcessState:(*os.ProcessState)(0xc200066520)}
2013/05/16 02:35:57 exit status 1
exit status 1

I think this is because Go spawns a process not related to the current tty, with which it is working. How can I relate the command to current terminal in order to get its size?

Answer 1

It works if you give the child process access to the parent's stdin:

package main

import (
  "os/exec"
  "fmt"
  "log"
  "os"
)

func main() {
  cmd := exec.Command("stty", "size")
  cmd.Stdin = os.Stdin
  out, err := cmd.Output()
  fmt.Printf("out: %#v\n", string(out))
  fmt.Printf("err: %#v\n", err)
  if err != nil {
    log.Fatal(err)
  }
}

Yields:

out: "36 118\n"
err: <nil>

Answer 2

I just wanted to add a new answer since I ran into this problem recently. There is a terminal package which lives inside the official ssh package https://godoc.org/golang.org/x/crypto/ssh/terminal.

This package provides a method to easily get the size of a terminal.

width, height, err := terminal.GetSize(0)

0 would be the file descriptor of the terminal you want the size of. To get the fd or you current terminal you can always do int(os.Stdin.Fd())

Under the covers it uses a syscall to get the terminal size for the given fd.

Answer 3

I was stuck on a similar problem. Here is what I ended up with.

It doesn't use a subprocess, so might be desirable in some situations.

import (
    "syscall"
    "unsafe"
)

type winsize struct {
    Row    uint16
    Col    uint16
    Xpixel uint16
    Ypixel uint16
}

func getWidth() uint {
    ws := &winsize{}
    retCode, _, errno := syscall.Syscall(syscall.SYS_IOCTL,
        uintptr(syscall.Stdin),
        uintptr(syscall.TIOCGWINSZ),
        uintptr(unsafe.Pointer(ws)))

    if int(retCode) == -1 {
        panic(errno)
    }
    return uint(ws.Col)
}

Answer 4

You can use golang.org/x/term package (https://pkg.go.dev/golang.org/x/term)

Example

package main

import "golang.org/x/term"

func main() {
    if term.IsTerminal(0) {
        println("in a term")
    } else {
        println("not in a term")
    }
    width, height, err := term.GetSize(0)
    if err != nil {
        return
    }
    println("width:", width, "height:", height)
}

Output

in a term
width: 228 height: 27

Answer 5

Since no one else here has yet to present a cross-platform solution that will work on both Windows and Unix, I went ahead and put together a library that supports both.

https://github.com/nathan-fiscaletti/consolesize-go

package main

import (
    "fmt"

    "github.com/nathan-fiscaletti/consolesize-go"
)

func main() {
    cols, rows := consolesize.GetConsoleSize()
    fmt.Printf("Rows: %v, Cols: %v\n", rows, cols)
}

Answer 6

If anyone's interested I made a package to make this easier.

https://github.com/wayneashleyberry/terminal-dimensions

package main

import (
    "fmt"

    terminal "github.com/wayneashleyberry/terminal-dimensions"
)

func main() {
    x, _ := terminal.Width()
    y, _ := terminal.Height()
    fmt.Printf("Terminal is %d wide and %d high", x, y)
}

Answer 7

I have one implementation that uses tcell module, under the hood it will still use approach that based on calling native dlls, but if you're searching for terminal dimensions there is a great chance that you would need that package anyway:

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "github.com/gdamore/tcell"
)

func main() {
    screen, _ := tcell.NewScreen()
    screen.Init()
    
    w, h := screen.Size()
    fmt.Println(w, h)
}