4 ms·

I have never quite found a full and comprehensive catalogue of escape sequences. I think the last time I needed a list, I found a developer of a terminal app(m

by Lerc 4mo ago

I have never quite found a full and comprehensive catalogue of escape sequences. I think the last time I needed a list, I found a developer of a terminal app(might have been kitty?) had a page with what they had found. This isn't no much a specification as a collection of variously supported codes. Some have been deliberately killed off (like setting the window title to the string returned from a commandline string). An escape code so powerful that it gives text files shell access.

shakna 4mo ago
Or, a collection of specifications. C0 in ISO 6429 C1 in ECMA-48 Though, the big one is C1. OS commands and CSI (graphics, cursors, etc.) are both defined in it. And hyperlinks have sorta default to ESC]8 but its not in any of the standards. Ta to Gnome and VTE for making it semi-supported everywhere. The Linux manpage for ANSI escapes is pretty comprehensive as a catalogue. [1] If you're looking for what you can actually use, and what has been deprecated, man should be the first stop. [1] https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man4/console_codes.4.html https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man4/console_codes.4.html
- skissane 4mo ago
  > The Linux manpage for ANSI escapes is pretty comprehensive as a catalogue. [1] If you're looking for what you can actually use, and what has been deprecated, man should be the first stop. The Linux console_codes(4) man page is only what escape sequences are supported by the Linux VT console, which you probably aren't using. You are more likely using a GUI terminal emulator under Wayland or X, in which case you need to look at the docs for that terminal emulator. Most terminal emulators have more comprehensive support than the VT console does, so if the VT console supports it, a recent terminal emulator probably will too. The exception is "Linux Console Private CSI Sequences", which I doubt terminal emulators would support, although some of them could be supported.
  - shakna 4mo ago
    > Most terminal emulators have more comprehensive support than the VT console does, so if the VT console supports it, a recent terminal emulator probably will too. The exception is "Linux Console Private CSI Sequences", which I doubt terminal emulators would support, although some of them could be supported. Huh? Most of them have less. And none of them will have documented the OS-specific escapes, because that's kinda the role of console_codes. xterm-specific things, which supports more than most other emulators, and a lot more than VT, is documented in... console_codes. Sure, they have their own documentation, too. But console_codes is absolutely not only what is supported by the Linux VT console.
    - skissane 4mo ago
      But this isn't true. console_codes is only what the Linux VT console supports. For an example of what it omits: Alternate Screen Buffer support (DECSET 1049). This is common used by full screen apps (e.g. vi, less) to save/restore the contents of the command line screen. xterm supports it; most popular terminal emulators support it; the console_codes man page does not mention it. The Linux VT console did not support it until Linux 7.1 (see https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/23743ba64709a9c137c1b928f8b8e00d846af9cc https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/23743ba64709a9c137c...) and the console_codes man page still hasn't been updated to mention the kernel now supports it. > And none of them will have documented the OS-specific escapes, These aren't really "OS-specific". The Linux console defines private sequences of the form CSI Ps ; Ps ] – those aren't specific to Linux, they are specific to the Linux console – you can't assume most Linux terminal emulators support them. They also aren't technically valid per ECMA-48 – the ] terminator was already reserved for the "START DIRECTED STRING" (SDS), which was intended for use with Bidi (e.g. Arabic, Hebrew), although I'm not sure if any terminal supported it; and also, when preceded by a space, the "SELECT ALTERNATIVE PRESENTATION VARIANTS" (SAPV) function, which also relates to Bidi, but also to Indic scripts; few vendors ever implemented either function, but IBM aixterm does partially implement SAPV. Most terminal emulators (including xterm) instead use OSC (Operating System Command) to implement custom functionality, which would have been a more defensible choice from a standards-compliance perspective, but this feature was added in the 1990s, by developers who likely didn't have a good understanding of ECMA-48. Despite OSC's name, on almost all platforms it isn't implemented by the operating system, it is implemented by the terminal emulator, and so different terminal emulators on the same OS will implement different OSC sequences. (The only exception I am personally aware of is RMX, which uses OSC to do the moral equivalent of the termios IOCTLs under Unix-like systems, and so on RMX an OSC sent by an application is actually interpreted by the tty driver as a command to change its config.)

by Lerc 4mo ago

shakna 4mo ago

Or, a collection of specifications. C0 in ISO 6429 C1 in ECMA-48 Though, the big one is C1. OS commands and CSI (graphics, cursors, etc.) are both defined in it. And hyperlinks have sorta default to ESC]8 but its not in any of the standards. Ta to Gnome and VTE for making it semi-supported everywhere. The Linux manpage for ANSI escapes is pretty comprehensive as a catalogue. [1] If you're looking for what you can actually use, and what has been deprecated, man should be the first stop. [1] https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man4/console_codes.4.html https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man4/console_codes.4.html

skissane 4mo ago
> The Linux manpage for ANSI escapes is pretty comprehensive as a catalogue. [1] If you're looking for what you can actually use, and what has been deprecated, man should be the first stop. The Linux console_codes(4) man page is only what escape sequences are supported by the Linux VT console, which you probably aren't using. You are more likely using a GUI terminal emulator under Wayland or X, in which case you need to look at the docs for that terminal emulator. Most terminal emulators have more comprehensive support than the VT console does, so if the VT console supports it, a recent terminal emulator probably will too. The exception is "Linux Console Private CSI Sequences", which I doubt terminal emulators would support, although some of them could be supported.
- shakna 4mo ago
  > Most terminal emulators have more comprehensive support than the VT console does, so if the VT console supports it, a recent terminal emulator probably will too. The exception is "Linux Console Private CSI Sequences", which I doubt terminal emulators would support, although some of them could be supported. Huh? Most of them have less. And none of them will have documented the OS-specific escapes, because that's kinda the role of console_codes. xterm-specific things, which supports more than most other emulators, and a lot more than VT, is documented in... console_codes. Sure, they have their own documentation, too. But console_codes is absolutely not only what is supported by the Linux VT console.
  - skissane 4mo ago
    But this isn't true. console_codes is only what the Linux VT console supports. For an example of what it omits: Alternate Screen Buffer support (DECSET 1049). This is common used by full screen apps (e.g. vi, less) to save/restore the contents of the command line screen. xterm supports it; most popular terminal emulators support it; the console_codes man page does not mention it. The Linux VT console did not support it until Linux 7.1 (see https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/23743ba64709a9c137c1b928f8b8e00d846af9cc https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/23743ba64709a9c137c...) and the console_codes man page still hasn't been updated to mention the kernel now supports it. > And none of them will have documented the OS-specific escapes, These aren't really "OS-specific". The Linux console defines private sequences of the form CSI Ps ; Ps ] – those aren't specific to Linux, they are specific to the Linux console – you can't assume most Linux terminal emulators support them. They also aren't technically valid per ECMA-48 – the ] terminator was already reserved for the "START DIRECTED STRING" (SDS), which was intended for use with Bidi (e.g. Arabic, Hebrew), although I'm not sure if any terminal supported it; and also, when preceded by a space, the "SELECT ALTERNATIVE PRESENTATION VARIANTS" (SAPV) function, which also relates to Bidi, but also to Indic scripts; few vendors ever implemented either function, but IBM aixterm does partially implement SAPV. Most terminal emulators (including xterm) instead use OSC (Operating System Command) to implement custom functionality, which would have been a more defensible choice from a standards-compliance perspective, but this feature was added in the 1990s, by developers who likely didn't have a good understanding of ECMA-48. Despite OSC's name, on almost all platforms it isn't implemented by the operating system, it is implemented by the terminal emulator, and so different terminal emulators on the same OS will implement different OSC sequences. (The only exception I am personally aware of is RMX, which uses OSC to do the moral equivalent of the termios IOCTLs under Unix-like systems, and so on RMX an OSC sent by an application is actually interpreted by the tty driver as a command to change its config.)