tcgetattr -- Get Terminal Attributes

SYNOPSIS

 #include <termios.h>

 int tcgetattr(int fileDescriptor, struct termios *terminal);

DESCRIPTION

tcgetattr stores the attributes of a terminal device in a termios structure. The fields of termios (declared in <termios.h>) are flags that identify terminal modes and control characters. The following arguments are passed to tcgetattr:

fileDescriptor: is a file discriptor that refers to a terminal device.
terminal: is the address of a termios structure. The tcgetattr function fills this structure with the attributes of the terminal referred to by fileDescriptor.

You can call tcgetattr from either a foreground or background process. However, if called from a background process, terminal attributes may be changed by a subsequent call from a foreground process.

RETURN VALUE

tcgetattr returns a 0 if successful and a -1 if unsuccessful.

EXAMPLE

The following example illustrates the use of tcgetattr to determine the terminal attributes for stdout:

  #include <sys/types.h>
  #include <termios.h>
  #include <unistd.h>
  #include <stdio.h>
  #include <stdlib.h>

  #define NOTATTY 1

  main()
  {
     int ttyDevice = STDOUT_FILENO;
     struct termios termAttributes;

        /* Make sure file descriptor is for a TTY device.         */
     if ( ! isatty(ttyDevice) )
        return(NOTATTY);

        /* Get terminal attributes and then determine if terminal */
        /* start and stop is enabled and if terminal is in        */
        /* canonical mode.                                        */
     else {
        if (tcgetattr(ttyDevice, &termAttributes) != 0)
           perror("tcgetattr error");
        else {
           if (termAttributes.c_iflag & IXON)
               printf("Terminal start and stop is enabled.n");
           if (termAttributes.c_lflag & ICANON)
               printf("Terminal is in canonical mode.n");
        }
     }
     return(EXIT_SUCCESS);
  }

RELATED FUNCTIONS

cfgetispeed, cfgetospeed, tcsetattr