termios
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Name

termios, tcgetattr, tcsetattr, tcsendbreak, tcdrain, tcflush, tcflow, cfmakeraw, cfgetospeed, cfgetispeed, cfsetispeed, cfsetospeed, cfsetspeed — get and set terminal attributes, line control, get and set baud rate

Synopsis

#include <termios.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int tcgetattr( int   fd,
  struct termios *  termios_p);
int tcsetattr( int   fd,
  int   optional_actions,
  const struct termios *  termios_p);
int tcsendbreak( int   fd,
  int   duration);
int tcdrain( int   fd);
int tcflush( int   fd,
  int   queue_selector);
int tcflow( int   fd,
  int   action);
void cfmakeraw( struct termios *  termios_p);
speed_t cfgetispeed( const struct termios *  termios_p);
speed_t cfgetospeed( const struct termios *  termios_p);
int cfsetispeed( struct termios *  termios_p,
  speed_t   speed);
int cfsetospeed( struct termios *  termios_p,
  speed_t   speed);
int cfsetspeed( struct termios *  termios_p,
  speed_t   speed);
[Note] Note
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
cfsetspeed(), cfmakeraw():
_BSD_SOURCE

DESCRIPTION

The termios functions describe a general terminal interface that is provided to control asynchronous communications ports.

The termios structure

Many of the functions described here have a termios_p argument that is a pointer to a termios structure. This structure contains at least the following members:

tcflag_t c_iflag;      /* input modes */
tcflag_t c_oflag;      /* output modes */
tcflag_t c_cflag;      /* control modes */
tcflag_t c_lflag;      /* local modes */
cc_t     c_cc[NCCS];   /* control chars */

The values that may be assigned to these fields are described below. In the case of the first four bit-mask fields, the definitions of some of the associated flags that may be set are only exposed if a specific feature test macro (see feature_test_macros(7)) is defined, as noted in brackets ("[]").

In the descriptions below, "not in POSIX" means that the value is not specified in POSIX.1-2001, and "XSI" means that the value is specified in POSIX.1-2001 as part of the XSI extension.

c_iflag flag constants:

IGNBRK

Ignore BREAK condition on input.

BRKINT

If IGNBRK is set, a BREAK is ignored. If it is not set but BRKINT is set, then a BREAK causes the input and output queues to be flushed, and if the terminal is the controlling terminal of a foreground process group, it will cause a SIGINT to be sent to this foreground process group. When neither IGNBRK nor BRKINT are set, a BREAK reads as a null byte ('\0'), except when PARMRK is set, in which case it reads as the sequence \377 \0 \0.

IGNPAR

Ignore framing errors and parity errors.

PARMRK

If IGNPAR is not set, prefix a character with a parity error or framing error with \377 \0. If neither IGNPAR nor PARMRK is set, read a character with a parity error or framing error as \0.

INPCK

Enable input parity checking.

ISTRIP

Strip off eighth bit.

INLCR

Translate NL to CR on input.

IGNCR

Ignore carriage return on input.

ICRNL

Translate carriage return to newline on input (unless IGNCR is set).

IUCLC

(not in POSIX) Map uppercase characters to lowercase on input.

IXON

Enable XON/XOFF flow control on output.

IXANY

(XSI) Typing any character will restart stopped output. (The default is to allow just the START character to restart output.)

IXOFF

Enable XON/XOFF flow control on input.

IMAXBEL

(not in POSIX) Ring bell when input queue is full. Linux does not implement this bit, and acts as if it is always set.

IUTF8 (since Linux 2.6.4)

(not in POSIX) Input is UTF8; this allows character-erase to be correctly performed in cooked mode.

c_oflag flag constants defined in POSIX.1:

OPOST

Enable implementation-defined output processing.

The remaining c_oflag flag constants are defined in POSIX.1-2001, unless marked otherwise.

OLCUC

(not in POSIX) Map lowercase characters to uppercase on output.

ONLCR

(XSI) Map NL to CR-NL on output.

OCRNL

Map CR to NL on output.

ONOCR

Don't output CR at column 0.

ONLRET

Don't output CR.

OFILL

Send fill characters for a delay, rather than using a timed delay.

OFDEL

(not in POSIX) Fill character is ASCII DEL (0177). If unset, fill character is ASCII NUL ('\0'). (Not implemented on Linux.)

NLDLY

Newline delay mask. Values are NL0 and NL1. [requires _BSD_SOURCE or _SVID_SOURCE or _XOPEN_SOURCE]

CRDLY

Carriage return delay mask. Values are CR0, CR1, CR2, or CR3. [requires _BSD_SOURCE or _SVID_SOURCE or _XOPEN_SOURCE]

TABDLY

Horizontal tab delay mask. Values are TAB0, TAB1, TAB2, TAB3 (or XTABS). A value of TAB3, that is, XTABS, expands tabs to spaces (with tab stops every eight columns). [requires _BSD_SOURCE or _SVID_SOURCE or _XOPEN_SOURCE]

BSDLY

Backspace delay mask. Values are BS0 or BS1. (Has never been implemented.) [requires _BSD_SOURCE or _SVID_SOURCE or _XOPEN_SOURCE]

VTDLY

Vertical tab delay mask. Values are VT0 or VT1.

FFDLY

Form feed delay mask. Values are FF0 or FF1. [requires _BSD_SOURCE or _SVID_SOURCE or _XOPEN_SOURCE]

c_cflag flag constants:

CBAUD

(not in POSIX) Baud speed mask (4+1 bits). [requires _BSD_SOURCE or _SVID_SOURCE]

CBAUDEX

(not in POSIX) Extra baud speed mask (1 bit), included in CBAUD. [requires _BSD_SOURCE or _SVID_SOURCE]

(POSIX says that the baud speed is stored in the termios structure without specifying where precisely, and provides cfgetispeed() and cfsetispeed() for getting at it. Some systems use bits selected by CBAUD in c_cflag, other systems use separate fields, for example, sg_ispeed and sg_ospeed.)

CSIZE

Character size mask. Values are CS5, CS6, CS7, or CS8.

CSTOPB

Set two stop bits, rather than one.

CREAD

Enable receiver.

PARENB

Enable parity generation on output and parity checking for input.

PARODD

If set, then parity for input and output is odd; otherwise even parity is used.

HUPCL

Lower modem control lines after last process closes the device (hang up).

CLOCAL

Ignore modem control lines.

LOBLK

(not in POSIX) Block output from a non-current shell layer. For use by shl (shell layers). (Not implemented on Linux.)

CIBAUD

(not in POSIX) Mask for input speeds. The values for the CIBAUD bits are the same as the values for the CBAUD bits, shifted left IBSHIFT bits. [requires _BSD_SOURCE or _SVID_SOURCE] (Not implemented on Linux.)

CMSPAR

(not in POSIX) Use "stick" (mark/space) parity (supported on certain serial devices): if PARODD is set, the parity bit is always 1; if PARODD is not set, then the parity bit is always 0). [requires _BSD_SOURCE or _SVID_SOURCE]

CRTSCTS

(not in POSIX) Enable RTS/CTS (hardware) flow control. [requires _BSD_SOURCE or _SVID_SOURCE]

c_lflag flag constants:

ISIG

When any of the characters INTR, QUIT, SUSP, or DSUSP are received, generate the corresponding signal.

ICANON

Enable canonical mode (described below).

XCASE

(not in POSIX; not supported under Linux) If ICANON is also set, terminal is uppercase only. Input is converted to lowercase, except for characters preceded by \. On output, uppercase characters are preceded by \ and lowercase characters are converted to uppercase. [requires _BSD_SOURCE or _SVID_SOURCE or _XOPEN_SOURCE]

ECHO

Echo input characters.

ECHOE

If ICANON is also set, the ERASE character erases the preceding input character, and WERASE erases the preceding word.

ECHOK

If ICANON is also set, the KILL character erases the current line.

ECHONL

If ICANON is also set, echo the NL character even if ECHO is not set.

ECHOCTL

(not in POSIX) If ECHO is also set, ASCII control signals other than TAB, NL, START, and STOP are echoed as ^X, where X is the character with ASCII code 0x40 greater than the control signal. For example, character 0x08 (BS) is echoed as ^H. [requires _BSD_SOURCE or _SVID_SOURCE]

ECHOPRT

(not in POSIX) If ICANON and IECHO are also set, characters are printed as they are being erased. [requires _BSD_SOURCE or _SVID_SOURCE]

ECHOKE

(not in POSIX) If ICANON is also set, KILL is echoed by erasing each character on the line, as specified by ECHOE and ECHOPRT. [requires _BSD_SOURCE or _SVID_SOURCE]

DEFECHO

(not in POSIX) Echo only when a process is reading. (Not implemented on Linux.)

FLUSHO

(not in POSIX; not supported under Linux) Output is being flushed. This flag is toggled by typing the DISCARD character. [requires _BSD_SOURCE or _SVID_SOURCE]

NOFLSH

Disable flushing the input and output queues when generating the SIGINT, SIGQUIT, and SIGSUSP signals.

TOSTOP

Send the SIGTTOU signal to the process group of a background process which tries to write to its controlling terminal.

PENDIN

(not in POSIX; not supported under Linux) All characters in the input queue are reprinted when the next character is read. (bash(1) handles typeahead this way.) [requires _BSD_SOURCE or _SVID_SOURCE]

IEXTEN

Enable implementation-defined input processing. This flag, as well as ICANON must be enabled for the special characters EOL2, LNEXT, REPRINT, WERASE to be interpreted, and for the IUCLC flag to be effective.

The c_cc array defines the special control characters. The symbolic indices (initial values) and meaning are:

VINTR

(003, ETX, Ctrl-C, or also 0177, DEL, rubout) Interrupt character. Send a SIGINT signal. Recognized when ISIG is set, and then not passed as input.

VQUIT

(034, FS, Ctrl-\) Quit character. Send SIGQUIT signal. Recognized when ISIG is set, and then not passed as input.

VERASE

(0177, DEL, rubout, or 010, BS, Ctrl-H, or also #) Erase character. This erases the previous not-yet-erased character, but does not erase past EOF or beginning-of-line. Recognized when ICANON is set, and then not passed as input.

VKILL

(025, NAK, Ctrl-U, or Ctrl-X, or also @) Kill character. This erases the input since the last EOF or beginning-of-line. Recognized when ICANON is set, and then not passed as input.

VEOF

(004, EOT, Ctrl-D) End-of-file character. More precisely: this character causes the pending tty buffer to be sent to the waiting user program without waiting for end-of-line. If it is the first character of the line, the read(2) in the user program returns 0, which signifies end-of-file. Recognized when ICANON is set, and then not passed as input.

VMIN

Minimum number of characters for non-canonical read.

VEOL

(0, NUL) Additional end-of-line character. Recognized when ICANON is set.

VTIME

Timeout in deciseconds for non-canonical read.

VEOL2

(not in POSIX; 0, NUL) Yet another end-of-line character. Recognized when ICANON is set.

VSWTCH

(not in POSIX; not supported under Linux; 0, NUL) Switch character. (Used by shl only.)

VSTART

(021, DC1, Ctrl-Q) Start character. Restarts output stopped by the Stop character. Recognized when IXON is set, and then not passed as input.

VSTOP

(023, DC3, Ctrl-S) Stop character. Stop output until Start character typed. Recognized when IXON is set, and then not passed as input.

VSUSP

(032, SUB, Ctrl-Z) Suspend character. Send SIGTSTP signal. Recognized when ISIG is set, and then not passed as input.

VDSUSP

(not in POSIX; not supported under Linux; 031, EM, Ctrl-Y) Delayed suspend character: send SIGTSTP signal when the character is read by the user program. Recognized when IEXTEN and ISIG are set, and the system supports job control, and then not passed as input.

VLNEXT

(not in POSIX; 026, SYN, Ctrl-V) Literal next. Quotes the next input character, depriving it of a possible special meaning. Recognized when IEXTEN is set, and then not passed as input.

VWERASE

(not in POSIX; 027, ETB, Ctrl-W) Word erase. Recognized when ICANON and IEXTEN are set, and then not passed as input.

VREPRINT

(not in POSIX; 022, DC2, Ctrl-R) Reprint unread characters. Recognized when ICANON and IEXTEN are set, and then not passed as input.

VDISCARD

(not in POSIX; not supported under Linux; 017, SI, Ctrl-O) Toggle: start/stop discarding pending output. Recognized when IEXTEN is set, and then not passed as input.

VSTATUS

(not in POSIX; not supported under Linux; status request: 024, DC4, Ctrl-T).

These symbolic subscript values are all different, except that VTIME, VMIN may have the same value as VEOL, VEOF, respectively. In non-canonical mode the special character meaning is replaced by the timeout meaning. For an explanation of VMIN and VTIME, see the description of non-canonical mode below.

Retrieving and changing terminal settings

tcgetattr() gets the parameters associated with the object referred by fd and stores them in the termios structure referenced by termios_p. This function may be invoked from a background process; however, the terminal attributes may be subsequently changed by a foreground process.

tcsetattr() sets the parameters associated with the terminal (unless support is required from the underlying hardware that is not available) from the termios structure referred to by termios_p. optional_actions specifies when the changes take effect:

TCSANOW

the change occurs immediately.

TCSADRAIN

the change occurs after all output written to fd has been transmitted. This function should be used when changing parameters that affect output.

TCSAFLUSH

the change occurs after all output written to the object referred by fd has been transmitted, and all input that has been received but not read will be discarded before the change is made.

Canonical and non-canonical mode

The setting of the ICANON canon flag in c_lflag determines whether the terminal is operating in canonical mode (ICANON set) or non-canonical mode (ICANON unset). By default, ICANON set.

In canonical mode:

  • Input is made available line by line. An input line is available when one of the line delimiters is typed (NL, EOL, EOL2; or EOF at the start of line). Except in the case of EOF, the line delimiter is included in the buffer returned by read(2).

  • Line editing is enabled (ERASE, KILL; and if the IEXTEN flag is set: WERASE, REPRINT, LNEXT). A read(2) returns at most one line of input; if the read(2) requested fewer bytes than are available in the current line of input, then only as many bytes as requested are read, and the remaining characters will be available for a future read(2).

In non-canonical mode input is available immediately (without the user having to type a line-delimiter character), and line editing is disabled. The settings of MIN (c_cc[VMIN]) and TIME (c_cc[VTIME]) determine the circumstances in which a read(2) completes; there are four distinct cases:

  • MIN == 0; TIME == 0: If data is available, read(2) returns immediately, with the lesser of the number of bytes available, or the number of bytes requested. If no data is available, read(2) returns 0.

  • MIN > 0; TIME == 0: read(2) blocks until the lesser of MIN bytes or the number of bytes requested are available, and returns the lesser of these two values.

  • MIN == 0; TIME > 0: TIME specifies the limit for a timer in tenths of a second. The timer is started when read(2) is called. read(2) returns either when at least one byte of data is available, or when the timer expires. If the timer expires without any input becoming available, read(2) returns 0.

  • MIN > 0; TIME > 0: TIME specifies the limit for a timer in tenths of a second. Once an initial byte of input becomes available, the timer is restarted after each further byte is received. read(2) returns either when the lesser of the number of bytes requested or MIN byte have been read, or when the inter-byte timeout expires. Because the timer is only started after the initial byte becomes available, at least one byte will be read.

Raw mode

cfmakeraw() sets the terminal to something like the "raw" mode of the old Version 7 terminal driver: input is available character by character, echoing is disabled, and all special processing of terminal input and output characters is disabled. The terminal attributes are set as follows:

    termios_p−>c_iflag &= ~(IGNBRK | BRKINT | PARMRK | ISTRIP
                    | INLCR | IGNCR | ICRNL | IXON);
    termios_p−>c_oflag &= ~OPOST;
    termios_p−>c_lflag &= ~(ECHO | ECHONL | ICANON | ISIG | IEXTEN);
    termios_p−>c_cflag &= ~(CSIZE | PARENB);
    termios_p−>c_cflag |= CS8;

Line control

tcsendbreak() transmits a continuous stream of zero-valued bits for a specific duration, if the terminal is using asynchronous serial data transmission. If duration is zero, it transmits zero-valued bits for at least 0.25 seconds, and not more that 0.5 seconds. If duration is not zero, it sends zero-valued bits for some implementation-defined length of time.

If the terminal is not using asynchronous serial data transmission, tcsendbreak() returns without taking any action.

tcdrain() waits until all output written to the object referred to by fd has been transmitted.

tcflush() discards data written to the object referred to by fd but not transmitted, or data received but not read, depending on the value of queue_selector:

TCIFLUSH

flushes data received but not read.

TCOFLUSH

flushes data written but not transmitted.

TCIOFLUSH

flushes both data received but not read, and data written but not transmitted.

tcflow() suspends transmission or reception of data on the object referred to by fd, depending on the value of action:

TCOOFF

suspends output.

TCOON

restarts suspended output.

TCIOFF

transmits a STOP character, which stops the terminal device from transmitting data to the system.

TCION

transmits a START character, which starts the terminal device transmitting data to the system.

The default on open of a terminal file is that neither its input nor its output is suspended.

Line speed

The baud rate functions are provided for getting and setting the values of the input and output baud rates in the termios structure. The new values do not take effect until tcsetattr() is successfully called.

Setting the speed to B0 instructs the modem to "hang up". The actual bit rate corresponding to B38400 may be altered with setserial(8).

The input and output baud rates are stored in the termios structure.

cfgetospeed() returns the output baud rate stored in the termios structure pointed to by termios_p.

cfsetospeed() sets the output baud rate stored in the termios structure pointed to by termios_p to speed, which must be one of these constants:

B0
B50
B75
B110
B134
B150
B200
B300
B600
B1200
B1800
B2400
B4800
B9600
B19200
B38400
B57600
B115200
B230400

The zero baud rate, B0, is used to terminate the connection. If B0 is specified, the modem control lines shall no longer be asserted. Normally, this will disconnect the line. CBAUDEX is a mask for the speeds beyond those defined in POSIX.1 (57600 and above). Thus, B57600 & CBAUDEX is nonzero.

cfgetispeed() returns the input baud rate stored in the termios structure.

cfsetispeed() sets the input baud rate stored in the termios structure to speed, which must be specified as one of the Bnnn constants listed above for cfsetospeed(). If the input baud rate is set to zero, the input baud rate will be equal to the output baud rate.

cfsetspeed() is a 4.4BSD extension. It takes the same arguments as cfsetispeed(), and sets both input and output speed.

RETURN VALUE

cfgetispeed() returns the input baud rate stored in the termios structure.

cfgetospeed() returns the output baud rate stored in the termios structure.

All other functions return:

0

on success.

−1

on failure and set errno to indicate the error.

Note that tcsetattr() returns success if any of the requested changes could be successfully carried out. Therefore, when making multiple changes it may be necessary to follow this call with a further call to tcgetattr() to check that all changes have been performed successfully.

CONFORMING TO

tcgetattr(), tcsetattr(), tcsendbreak(), tcdrain(), tcflush(), tcflow(), cfgetispeed(), cfgetospeed(), cfsetispeed(), and cfsetospeed() are specified in POSIX.1-2001.

cfmakeraw() and cfsetspeed() are non-standard, but available on the BSDs.

NOTES

Unix V7 and several later systems have a list of baud rates where after the fourteen values B0, ..., B9600 one finds the two constants EXTA, EXTB ("External A" and "External B"). Many systems extend the list with much higher baud rates.

The effect of a nonzero duration with tcsendbreak() varies. SunOS specifies a break of duration*N seconds, where N is at least 0.25, and not more than 0.5. Linux, AIX, DU, Tru64 send a break of duration milliseconds. FreeBSD and NetBSD and HP-UX and MacOS ignore the value of duration. Under Solaris and Unixware, tcsendbreak() with nonzero duration behaves like tcdrain().

SEE ALSO

stty(1), console_ioctl(4), tty_ioctl(4), setserial(8)

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 2.79 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.


Copyright (c) 1993 Michael Haardt
(michaelmoria.de)
Fri Apr  2 11:32:09 MET DST 1993

This is free documentation; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of
the License, or (at your option) any later version.

The GNU General Public License's references to "object code"
and "executables" are to be interpreted as the output of any
document formatting or typesetting system, including
intermediate and printed output.

This manual is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
License along with this manual; if not, write to the Free
Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111,
USA.

Modified 1993-07-24 by Rik Faith <faithcs.unc.edu>
Modified 1995-02-25 by Jim Van Zandt <jrvvanzandt.mv.com>
Modified 1995-09-02 by Jim Van Zandt <jrvvanzandt.mv.com>
moved to man3, aeb, 950919
Modified 2001-09-22 by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpagesgmail.com>
Modified 2001-12-17, aeb
Modified 2004-10-31, aeb
2006-12-28, mtk:
    Added .SS headers to give some structure to this page; and a
    small amount of reordering.
    Added a section on canonical and non-canonical mode.
    Enhanced the discussion of "raw" mode for cfmakeraw().
    Document CMSPAR.
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