Getting the cursor position

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I need to get the cursor position, and put it inside a variable. Problem is, i don't have the tput command, or ncurses.

Apparently I was supposed to try the following:

echo -e '\E[6n'

But I don't get a value or anything. Please help.

2

Try this:

echo -e '\033[6n' ; read -sd R CURPOS
CURPOS=${CURPOS#*[}
3

That doesn't work for some reason. Is there another way?

4

Which escape sequence actually works depends on the terminal (and the terminal emulation) you use. Alas, the times where knowing the terminal type was a matter of issuing "echo $TERM" are long gone: most of the wonderful replacements of "xterm" desktop systems like GNOME or KDE are pestering us with their own replacements which claim to be "xterm"s when in fact they aren't - only compatible up to a certain point.

So make sure you are really working with the terminal you believe to work with and maybe re-read the termcap sequences of the one really used.

I hope this helps.

bakunin