Querying the size of the output terminal

function get_terminal_size(fallback=(columns, rows))

Get the size of the terminal window.

For each of the two dimensions, the environment variable, COLUMNS and ROWS respectively, is checked. If the variable is defined and the value is a positive integer, it is used.

When COLUMNS or ROWS is not defined, which is the common case, the terminal connected to sys.__stdout__ is queried.

If the terminal size cannot be successfully queried, either because the system doesn't support querying, or because we are not connected to a terminal, the value given in fallback parameter is used.

The value returned is a named tuple of type terminal_size.

function get_terminal_size_raw(fd=STDOUT_FILENO)

Return the size of the terminal window as (columns, rows), tuple of type terminal_size.

The optional argument fd (default STDOUT_FILENO, or standard output) specifies which file descriptor should be queried.

If the file descriptor is not connected to a terminal, a OSError, is thrown.

get_terminal_size is the high-level function which should normally be used, get_terminal_size_raw is the low-level implementation.

named tuple terminal_size(tuple)

A tuple of (columns, rows) for holding terminal window size.

• attribute: columns

  Width of the terminal window in characters.

• attribute: rows

  Height of the terminal window in characters.