Question

How to check ymax and xmax in a console window, under Windows, using plain c?

There is this piece of code for linux:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/ioctl.h>
int main (void)
{
    struct winsize max;
    ioctl(0, TIOCGWINSZ , &max);
    printf ("lines %d\n", max.ws_row);
    printf ("columns %d\n", max.ws_col);
}

Now I wonder how can I do the same for windows. I tried winioctl.h but it does not define struct winsize nor any other with a similar name.

Any tips? Thanks.

PS. In linux you also can find the console size using getenv("LINES");. Is there a similar variable under windows?

PPS. Also, there is always ncurses.h, that I suppose work both systems, but I’m avoiding it because of conflicts with other libraries I have.

PPPS. This question here Getting terminal width in C? has a lot of tips, so no need to repeat that.

Answer 1

(Partial answer)

This code:

CONSOLE_SCREEN_BUFFER_INFO csbi;
int ret;
ret = GetConsoleScreenBufferInfo(GetStdHandle( STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE ),&csbi);
if(ret)
{
    printf("Console Buffer Width: %d\n", csbi.dwSize.X);
    printf("Console Buffer Height: %d\n", csbi.dwSize.Y);
}

Gives the size of the buffer. The only problem is that dwSize.Y is not really the size of the screen (300 here instead of 25 lines). But dwSize.X matches the column’s number. Needs only windows.h to work.