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@jtriley
Created July 26, 2011 21:58
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Get current terminal size on Linux, Mac, and Windows
#!/usr/bin/env python
import os
import shlex
import struct
import platform
import subprocess
def get_terminal_size():
""" getTerminalSize()
- get width and height of console
- works on linux,os x,windows,cygwin(windows)
originally retrieved from:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/566746/how-to-get-console-window-width-in-python
"""
current_os = platform.system()
tuple_xy = None
if current_os == 'Windows':
tuple_xy = _get_terminal_size_windows()
if tuple_xy is None:
tuple_xy = _get_terminal_size_tput()
# needed for window's python in cygwin's xterm!
if current_os in ['Linux', 'Darwin'] or current_os.startswith('CYGWIN'):
tuple_xy = _get_terminal_size_linux()
if tuple_xy is None:
print "default"
tuple_xy = (80, 25) # default value
return tuple_xy
def _get_terminal_size_windows():
try:
from ctypes import windll, create_string_buffer
# stdin handle is -10
# stdout handle is -11
# stderr handle is -12
h = windll.kernel32.GetStdHandle(-12)
csbi = create_string_buffer(22)
res = windll.kernel32.GetConsoleScreenBufferInfo(h, csbi)
if res:
(bufx, bufy, curx, cury, wattr,
left, top, right, bottom,
maxx, maxy) = struct.unpack("hhhhHhhhhhh", csbi.raw)
sizex = right - left + 1
sizey = bottom - top + 1
return sizex, sizey
except:
pass
def _get_terminal_size_tput():
# get terminal width
# src: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/263890/how-do-i-find-the-width-height-of-a-terminal-window
try:
cols = int(subprocess.check_call(shlex.split('tput cols')))
rows = int(subprocess.check_call(shlex.split('tput lines')))
return (cols, rows)
except:
pass
def _get_terminal_size_linux():
def ioctl_GWINSZ(fd):
try:
import fcntl
import termios
cr = struct.unpack('hh',
fcntl.ioctl(fd, termios.TIOCGWINSZ, '1234'))
return cr
except:
pass
cr = ioctl_GWINSZ(0) or ioctl_GWINSZ(1) or ioctl_GWINSZ(2)
if not cr:
try:
fd = os.open(os.ctermid(), os.O_RDONLY)
cr = ioctl_GWINSZ(fd)
os.close(fd)
except:
pass
if not cr:
try:
cr = (os.environ['LINES'], os.environ['COLUMNS'])
except:
return None
return int(cr[1]), int(cr[0])
if __name__ == "__main__":
sizex, sizey = get_terminal_size()
print 'width =', sizex, 'height =', sizey
@kodybrown
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This works in Windows 8.. Thanks!

@prologic
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prologic commented Dec 8, 2013

Thank you :) I'm using this for http://mio-lang.org/ as part of it's tab completer function

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ghost commented Dec 11, 2013

I thought about using it for some stuff I'm writing it (thanks for providing it btw),
I forked it and added some 'caching' so it does not run all the tests again over and over:
https://gist.github.com/Captank/7912710
It boosts it just a bit, 100k calls of the original get_terminal_size() took ~2.4 seconds, now it's just 1.8 seconds
(I'm not sure if that would be the pythonic way, I've just started learning python :'D)

@maxbane
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maxbane commented Mar 17, 2014

Nice. License?

@freejoe76
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@maxbane I'm not sure how a license would work here, it was adapted from the script at http://stackoverflow.com/a/6550596/23998 which was adapted from http://code.activestate.com/recipes/440694-determine-size-of-console-window-on-windows/

@jkonecny12
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Hi jtriley I want to thank you for this script. I do a minor changes to it and using it for my own downloader script which is in github. I want to ask if it's ok for you.

Here is the script.

@ffunenga
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Great! I'll try to use this in my ffunenga/pipgh repo

@catb0t
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catb0t commented Feb 22, 2016

Sweet, I'll be using a rendition of this in https://github.com/catb0t/input_constrain

@afranchuk
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For _get_terminal_size_tput, the subprocess calls should use subprocess.check_output, not subprocess.check_call.

The current code causes the size to be printed to the terminal, but the returned size will be (0,0) (that is, if tput successfully exits on each call).

@microlith57
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Thanks! Super helpful!

@Chronial
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Chronial commented Feb 3, 2018

Note that there is python standard lib function for this now: os.get_terminal_size()

@arvestad
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arvestad commented Oct 5, 2018

Thanks @Chronial for pointing this out! I note however that the docs for os.get_terminal_size() says that shutil.get_terminal_size() is the high-level call that should normally be used.

@kodekage
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kodekage commented Jun 30, 2020

What python version is supported?

I'm running the script with python3 and I'm getting syntax errors

py-error

@hyperclick
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@andrebtw
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If you want to get the terminal size on all OS now you just gotta do :

import os
width, height = os.get_terminal_size()

have a nice day 😃

@ola-sk
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ola-sk commented Jul 21, 2022

@andrebtw:

If you want to get the terminal size on all OS now you just gotta do :

import os
width, height = os.get_terminal_size()

have a nice day 😃

Nope. Doesn't work on Windows 10 for me. The shutil.get_terminal_size() does work tough, just like @arvestad said

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