What does os.environ.get() do with LINES and ROWS

Asked Apr 05 '18 at 12:34

Active Apr 05 '18 at 12:34

Viewed 853 times

I received a suggestion that might help with Getting the amount of available lines in a terminal.

Here was the suggestion:

Is os.environ.get('ROWS') or os.environ.get('LINES') not cross-platform enough? Sure, it doesn't work on NT unless you're running cygwin or 4NT, or on most modern Mac or Linux setups, but it covers DOS, Win9x, and tons of old Unix terminals from before the days of tput or BSD-style stty. :)

I am familiar with the function os.environ.get()(from How do I access environment variables from Python?)

The problem is that I do not understand what environment variables LINES and ROWS refer to.

Is this a preexisting variable on some consoles, or would I need to always set them myself?

Here is what I tried in my console:

>>> import os
>>> print(os.environ.get('LINES'))
None
>>> print(os.environ.get('ROWS'))
None
>>>

So it is clear in my Windows terminal at least they are not set.

I am also unsure what they do and even if they exist since I could not find anything about either of them.

asked Apr 05 '18 at 12:34

Xantium

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you've been told bulls**t – Jean-François Fabre Apr 05 '18 at 12:37
@Jean-FrançoisFabre Can I then assume this is a dead end towards another way to achieve what I want? – Xantium Apr 05 '18 at 12:38
on windows, that's not the way to get the lines. On `MSYS` `LINES` exists, `ROWS` doesn't. you probably need windows API to get the values. I'm not sure. the answer linked seems to be OK on windows. – Jean-François Fabre Apr 05 '18 at 12:40
@Jean-FrançoisFabre Yes so far it has involved the API – Xantium Apr 05 '18 at 12:48
for me LINES and COLUMNS work from the shell but not within python – fuzzyTew Mar 18 '22 at 13:33

What does os.environ.get() do with LINES and ROWS

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