NAME
termio - general terminal interface
SYNOPSIS
#include <termio.h>
ioctl(int fildes, int
request, struct termio *arg); ioctl(int fildes, int
request, int arg); #include <termios.h>
ioctl(int
fildes, int request, struct termios *arg);
DESCRIPTION
This release supports a general interface for
asynchronous communications ports that is hardware-independent. The user
interface to this functionality is using function calls (the preferred
interface) described in termios(3) or ioctl
commands described in this section. This section also discusses the common
features of the terminal subsystem which are relevant with both user interfaces.
When a terminal file is opened, it normally causes the process to wait until a connection is established. In practice, users' programs seldom open terminal files; they are opened by the system and become a user's standard input, output, and error files. The first terminal file opened by the session leader that is not already associated with a session becomes the controlling terminal for that session. The controlling terminal plays a special role in handling quit and interrupt signals, as discussed below. The controlling terminal is inherited by a child process during a fork(2). A process can break this association by changing its session using setsid() (see getsid(2)).
A terminal associated with one of these files ordinarily operates in full-duplex mode. Characters may be typed at any time, even while output is occurring, and are only lost when the character input buffers of the system become completely full, which is rare. For example, the number of characters in the line discipline buffer may exceed {MAX_CANON} and IMAXBEL (see below) is not set, or the user may accumulate {MAX_INPUT} number of input characters that have not yet been read by some program. When the input limit is reached, all the characters saved in the buffer up to that point are thrown away without notice.
Session Management (Job Control)
A control terminal will distinguish one
of the process groups in the session associated with it to be the foreground
process group. All other process groups in the session are designated as
background process groups. This foreground process group plays a special role in
handling signal-generating input characters, as discussed below. By default,
when a controlling terminal is allocated, the controlling process's process
group is assigned as foreground process group.
Background process groups in the controlling process's session are subject to a job control line discipline when they attempt to access their controlling terminal. Process groups can be sent signals that will cause them to stop, unless they have made other arrangements. An exception is made for members of orphaned process groups.
The operating system will not normally send SIGTSTP, SIGTTIN, or SIGTTOU signals to a process that is a member of an orphaned process group.
These are process groups which do not have a member with a parent in another process group that is in the same session and therefore shares the same controlling terminal. When a member's orphaned process group attempts to access its controlling terminal, errors will be returned. since there is no process to continue it if it should stop.
If a member of a background process group attempts to read its controlling terminal, its process group will be sent a SIGTTIN signal, which will normally cause the members of that process group to stop. If, however, the process is ignoring or holding SIGTTIN, or is a member of an orphaned process group, the read will fail with errno set to EIO, and no signal will be sent.
If a member of a background process group attempts to write its controlling terminal and the TOSTOP bit is set in the c_lflag field, its process group will be sent a SIGTTOU signal, which will normally cause the members of that process group to stop. If, however, the process is ignoring or holding SIGTTOU, the write will succeed. If the process is not ignoring or holding SIGTTOU and is a member of an orphaned process group, the write will fail with errno set to EIO, and no signal will be sent.
If TOSTOP is set and a member of a background process group attempts to ioctl its controlling terminal, and that ioctl will modify terminal parameters (for example, TCSETA, TCSETAW, TCSETAF, or TIOCSPGRP), its process group will be sent a SIGTTOU signal, which will normally cause the members of that process group to stop. If, however, the process is ignoring or holding SIGTTOU, the ioctl will succeed. If the process is not ignoring or holding SIGTTOU and is a member of an orphaned process group, the write will fail with errno set to EIO, and no signal will be sent.
Canonical Mode Input Processing
During input, erase and kill processing is normally done. The ERASE character (by default, the character DEL) erases the last character typed. The WERASE character (the character Control-w) erases the last "word" typed in the current input line (but not any preceding spaces or tabs). A "word" is defined as a sequence of non-blank characters, with tabs counted as blanks. Neither ERASE nor WERASE will erase beyond the beginning of the line. The KILL character (by default, the character NAK) kills (deletes) the entire input line, and optionally outputs a newline character. All these characters operate on a key stroke basis, independent of any backspacing or tabbing that may have been done. The REPRINT character (the character Control-r) prints a newline followed by all characters that have not been read. Reprinting also occurs automatically if characters that would normally be erased from the screen are fouled by program output. The characters are reprinted as if they were being echoed; consequencely, if ECHO is not set, they are not printed.
The ERASE and KILL characters may be entered literally by preceding them with the `\' (escape) character. In this case, the escape character is not read. The erase and kill characters may be changed.
Non-canonical Mode Input Processing
In non-canonical mode input
processing, input characters are not assembled into lines, and erase and kill
processing does not occur. The MIN and TIME values are used to determine how to
process the characters received.
MIN represents the minimum number of characters that should be received when the read is satisfied (that is, when the characters are returned to the user). TIME is a timer of 0.10-second granularity that is used to timeout bursty and short-term data transmissions. The four possible values for MIN and TIME and their interactions are described below.
Case A: MIN > 0, TIME > 0
In this case, TIME serves as an
intercharacter timer and is activated after the first character is received.
Since it is an intercharacter timer, it is reset after a character is received.
The interaction between MIN and TIME is as follows: as soon as one character is
received, the intercharacter timer is started. If MIN characters are received
before the intercharacter timer expires (note that the timer is reset upon
receipt of each character), the read is satisfied. If the timer expires before
MIN characters are received, the characters received to that point are returned
to the user. Note that if TIME expires, at least one character will be returned
because the timer would not have been enabled unless a character was received.
In this case (MIN > 0, TIME > 0), the read sleeps until the MIN and TIME
mechanisms are activated by the receipt of the first character. If the number of
characters read is less than the number of characters available, the timer is
not reactivated and the subsequent read is satisfied immediately.
Case B: MIN > 0, TIME = 0
In this case, since the value of TIME is
zero, the timer plays no role and only MIN is significant. A pending read is not
satisfied until MIN characters are received (the pending read sleeps until MIN
characters are received). A program that uses this case to read record based
terminal I/O may block indefinitely in the read operation.
Case C: MIN = 0, TIME > 0
In this case, since MIN = 0, TIME no longer
represents an intercharacter timer: it now serves as a read timer that is
activated as soon as a read is done. A read is satisfied as soon as a single
character is received or the read timer expires. Note that, in this case, if the
timer expires, no character is returned. If the timer does not expire, the only
way the read can be satisfied is if a character is received. In this case, the
read will not block indefinitely waiting for a character; if no character is
received within TIME*.10 seconds after the read is initiated, the read returns
with zero characters.
Case D: MIN = 0, TIME = 0
In this case, return is immediate. The minimum
of either the number of characters requested or the number of characters
currently available is returned without waiting for more characters to be input.
Comparing Different Cases of MIN, TIME Interaction Some points to note about MIN and TIME:
o In the following explanations, note that the interactions of MIN and TIME are not symmetric. For example, when MIN > 0 and TIME = 0, TIME has no effect. However, in the opposite case, where MIN = 0 and TIME > 0, both MIN and TIME play a role in that MIN is satisfied with the receipt of a single character.
o Also note that in case A (MIN > 0, TIME > 0), TIME represents an intercharacter timer, whereas in case C (MIN = 0, TIME > 0), TIME represents a read timer.
These two points highlight the dual purpose of the MIN/TIME feature. Cases A and B, where MIN > 0, exist to handle burst mode activity (for example, file transfer programs), where a program would like to process at least MIN characters at a time. In case A, the intercharacter timer is activated by a user as a safety measure; in case B, the timer is turned off.
Cases C and D exist to handle single character, timed transfers. These cases are readily adaptable to screenbased applications that need to know if a character is present in the input queue before refreshing the screen. In case C, the read is timed, whereas in case D, it is not.
Another important note is that MIN is always just a minimum. It does not denote a record length. For example, if a program does a read of 20 bytes, MIN is 10, and 25 characters are present, then 20 characters will be returned to the user.
Writing Characters
When one or more characters are written, they are
transmitted to the terminal as soon as previously written characters have
finished typing. Input characters are echoed as they are typed if echoing has
been enabled. If a process produces characters more rapidly than they can be
typed, it will be suspended when its output queue exceeds some limit. When the
queue is drained down to some threshold, the program is resumed.
Special Characters
Certain characters have special functions on input.
These functions and their default character values are summarized as follows:
If the controlling process is not in the foreground process group of the terminal, a SIGTSTP is sent to the terminal's foreground process group. Unless other arrangements have been made, these signals cause the processes to stop.
Processes in background process groups that attempt to access the controlling terminal after modem disconnect while the terminal is still allocated to the session will receive appropriate SIGTTOU and SIGTTIN signals. Unless other arrangements have been made, this signal causes the processes to stop.
The controlling terminal will remain in this state until it is reinitialized with a successful open by the controlling process, or deallocated by the controlling process.
Terminal Parameters
The parameters that control the behavior of devices
and modules providing the termios interface are specified by the termios
structure defined by termios.h. Several ioctl(2) system calls that
fetch or change these parameters use this structure that contains 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 */
Input Modes
The c_iflag field describes the basic terminal input control:
If IGNPAR is set, a byte with framing or parity errors (other than break) is ignored.
If PARMRK is set, and IGNPAR is not set, a byte with a framing or parity error (other than break) is given to the application as the three-character sequence: \377, \0, X, where X is the data of the byte received in error. To avoid ambiguity in this case, if ISTRIP is not set, a valid character of \377 is given to the application as \377, \377. If neither IGNPAR nor PARMRK is set, a framing or parity error (other than break) is given to the application as a single \0 (ASCII NULL) character.
If INPCK is set, input parity checking is enabled. If I NPCK is not set, input parity checking is disabled. This allows output parity generation without input parity errors. Note that whether input parity checking is enabled or disabled is independent of whether parity detection is enabled or disabled. If parity detection is enabled but input parity checking is disabled, the hardware to which the terminal is connected will recognize the parity bit, but the terminal special file will not check whether this is set correctly or not.
If ISTRIP is set, valid input characters are first stripped to seven bits, otherwise all eight bits are processed.
If INLCR is set, a received NL character is translated into a CR character. If IGNCR is set, a received CR character is ignored (not read). Otherwise, if ICRNL is set, a received CR character is translated into a NL character.
If IUCLC is set, a received upper case, alphabetic character is translated into the corresponding lower case character.
If IXON is set, start/stop output control is enabled. A received STOP character suspends output and a received START character restarts output. The STOP and START characters will not be read, but will merely perform flow control functions. If IXANY is set, any input character restarts output that has been suspended.
If IXOFF is set, the system transmits a STOP character when the input queue is nearly full, and a START character when enough input has been read so that the input queue is nearly empty again.
If IMAXBEL is set, the ASCII BEL character is echoed if the input stream overflows. Further input is not stored, but any input already present in the input stream is not disturbed. If IMAXBEL is not set, no BEL character is echoed, and all input present in the input queue is discarded if the input stream overflows.
Output Modes
The c_oflag field specifies the system treatment of output:
If OLCUC is set, a lower case alphabetic character is transmitted as the corresponding upper case character. This function is often used in conjunction with IUCLC.
If ONLCR is set, the NL character is transmitted as the CRNL character pair. If OCRNL is set, the CR character is transmitted as the NL character. If ONOCR is set, no CR character is transmitted when at column 0 (first position). If ONRET is set, the NL character is assumed to do the carriage-return function; the column pointer is set to 0 and the delays specified for CR are used. Otherwise, the NL character is assumed to do just the line-feed function; the column pointer remains unchanged. The column pointer is also set to 0 if the CR character is actually transmitted.
The delay bits specify how long transmission stops to allow for mechanical or other movement when certain characters are sent to the terminal. In all cases, a value of 0 indicates no delay. If OFILL is set, fill characters are transmitted for delay instead of a timed delay. This is useful for high baud rate terminals that need only a minimal delay. If OFDEL is set, the fill character is DEL; otherwise it is NULL.
If a form-feed or vertical-tab delay is specified, it lasts for about 2 seconds.
Newline delay lasts about 0.10 seconds. If ONLRET is set, the carriage-return delays are used instead of the newline delays. If OFILL is set, two fill characters are transmitted.
Carriage-return delay type 1 is dependent on the current column position, type 2 is about 0.10 seconds, and type 3 is about 0.15 seconds. If OFILL is set, delay type 1 transmits two fill characters, and type 2 transmits four fill characters.
Horizontal-tab delay type 1 is dependent on the current column position. Type 2 is about 0.10 seconds. Type 3 specifies that tabs are to be expanded into spaces. If
OFILL is set, two fill characters are transmitted for any delay.
Backspace delay lasts about 0.05 seconds. If OFILL is set, one fill character is transmitted.
The actual delays depend on line speed and system load.
Control Modes
The c_cflag field describes the hardware control of the
terminal:
speed_t ospeed;
if (termios_p->c_cflag & CBAUDEXT)
ospeed = (termios_p->c_cflag
& CBAUD) + CBAUD + 1; else
ospeed = termios_p->c_cflag & CBAUD;
To store the output speed in the termios structure pointed to by termios_p see the following code segment.
speed_t ospeed;
if (ospeed > CBAUD) {
termios_p->c_cflag |= CBAUDEXT;
ospeed -=
(CBAUD + 1);
} else
termios_p->c_cflag &= ~CBAUDEXT;
termios_p->c_cflag =
(termios_p->c_cflag & ~CBAUD) | (ospeed
& CBAUD);
The zero baud rate, B0, is used to hang up the connection. If B0 is specified, the data-terminal-ready signal is not asserted. Normally, this disconnects the line.
If the CIBAUDEXT or CIBAUD bits are not zero, they specify the input baud rate, with the CBAUDEXT and CBAUD bits specifying the output baud rate; otherwise, the output and input baud rates are both specified by the CBAUDEXT and CBAUD bits. The values for the CIBAUD bits are the same as the values for the CBAUD bits, shifted left IBSHIFT bits. For any particular hardware, impossible speed changes are ignored. To retrieve the input speed in the termios structure pointed to by termios_p see the following code segment.
speed_t ispeed;
if (termios_p->c_cflag & CIBAUDEXT)
ispeed = ((termios_p->c_cflag & CIBAUD) >> IBSHIFT) + (CIBAUD
>> IBSHIFT) + 1; else
ispeed = (termios_p->c_cflag & CIBAUD)
>> IBSHIFT;
To store the input speed in the termios structure pointed to by termios_p see the following code segment.
speed_t ispeed;
if (ispeed == 0) {
ispeed = termios_p->c_cflag & CBAUD; if
(termios_p->c_cflag & CBAUDEXT) ispeed += (CBAUD + 1); }
if ((ispeed << IBSHIFT) > CIBAUD) { termios_p->c_cflag |=
CIBAUDEXT; ispeed -= ((CIBAUD >> IBSHIFT) + 1); }
else
termios_p->c_cflag &= ~CIBAUDEXT; termios_p->c_cflag
=
(termios_p->c_cflag & ~CIBAUD)
((ispeed << IBSHIFT) &
CIBAUD);
The CSIZE bits specify the character size in bits for both transmission and reception. This size does not include the parity bit, if any. If CSTOPB is set, two stop bits are used; otherwise, one stop bit is used. For example, at 110 baud, two stops bits are required.
If PARENB is set, parity generation and detection is enabled, and a parity bit is added to each character. If parity is enabled, the PARODD flag specifies odd parity if set; otherwise, even parity is used.
If CREAD is set, the receiver is enabled. Otherwise, no characters are received.
If HUPCL is set, the line is disconnected when the last process with the line open closes it or terminates. That is, the data-terminal-ready signal is not asserted.
If CLOCAL is set, the line is assumed to be a local, direct connection with no modem control; otherwise, modem control is assumed.
If CRTSCTS is set, inbound hardware flow control is enabled.
If CRTSCTS is set, outbound hardware flow control is enabled.
The four possible combinations for the state of CRTSCTS and CRTSXOFF bits and their interactions are described below.
Case A: CRTSCTS off, CRTSXOFF off. In this case the hardware flow control is disabled.
Case B: CRTSCTS on, CRTSXOFF off. In this case only outbound hardware flow control is enabled. The state of CTS signal is used to do outbound flow control. It is expected that output will be suspended if CTS is low and resumed when CTS is high.
Case C: CRTSCTS off, CRTSXOFF on. In this case only inbound hardware flow control is enabled. The state of RTS signal is used to do inbound flow con
Local Modes
The c_lflag field of the argument structure is used by the
line discipline to control terminal functions. The basic line discipline
provides the following:
If ICANON is set, canonical processing is enabled. This enables the erase and kill edit functions, and the assembly of input characters into lines delimited by NL-c , EOF, EOL, and EOL. If ICANON is not set, read requests are satisfied directly from the input queue. A read is not satisfied until at least MIN characters have been received or the timeout value TIME has expired between characters. This allows fast bursts of input to be read efficiently while still allowing single character input. The time value represents tenths of seconds.
If XCASE is set, and if ICANON is set, an upper case letter is accepted on input by preceding it with a `\' character, and is output preceded by a `\' character. In this mode, the following escape sequences are generated on output and accepted on input:
For: Use:
If ECHO is set, characters are echoed as received.
When ICANON is set, the following echo functions are possible.
o If ECHO and ECHOE are set, and ECHOPRT is not set, the ERASE and WERASE characters are echoed as one or more ASCII BS SP BS, which clears the last character(s) from a CRT screen.
o If ECHO, ECHOPRT, and IEXTEN are set, the first ERASE and WERASE character in a sequence echoes as a `\' (backslash), followed by the characters being erased. Subsequent ERASE and WERASE characters echo the characters being erased, in reverse order. The next non-erase character causes a `/' (slash) to be typed before it is echoed. ECHOPRT should be used for hard copy terminals.
o If ECHOKE and IEXTEN are set, the kill character is echoed by erasing each character on the line from the screen (using the mechanism selected by ECHOE and ECHOPRa).
o If ECHOK is set, and ECHOKE is not set, the NL character is echoed after the kill character to emphasize that the line is deleted. Note that a `\' (escape) character or an LNEXT character preceding the erase or kill character removes any special function.
o If ECHONL is set, the NL character is echoed even if ECHO is not set. This is useful for terminals set to local echo (so called half-duplex).
If ECHOCTL and IEXTEN are set, all control characters (characters with codes between 0 and 37 octal) other than ASCII TAB, ASCII NL, the START character, and the STOP character, ASCII CR, and ASCII BS are echoed as ^X, where X is the character given by adding 100 octal to the code of the control character (so that the character with octal code 1 is echoed as ^A), and the ASCII DEL character, with code 177 octal, is echoed as ^?.
If NOFLSH is set, the normal flush of the input and output queues associated with the INTR, QUIT, and SUSP characters is not done. This bit should be set when restarting system calls that read from or write to a terminal (see sigaction(2)).
If TOSTOP and IEXTEN are set, the signal SIGTTOU is sent to a process that tries to write to its controlling terminal if it is not in the foreground process group for that terminal. This signal normally stops the process. Otherwise, the output generated by that process is output to the current output stream. Processes that are blocking or ignoring SIGTTOU signals are excepted and allowed to produce output, if any.
If FLUSHO and IEXTEN are set, data written to the terminal is discarded. This bit is set when the FLUSH character is typed. A program can cancel the effect of typing the FLUSH character by clearing FLUSHO.
If PENDIN and IEXTEN are set, any input that has not yet been read is reprinted when the next character arrives as input. PENDIN is then automatically cleared.
If IEXTEN is set, the following implementation-defined functions are enabled: special characters (WERASE, REPRINT, DISCARD, and LNEXT) and local flags (TOSTOP, ECHOCTL, ECHOPRT, ECHOKE, FLUSHO, and PENDIN).
Minimum and Timeout
The MIN and TIME values were described previously, in
the subsection, Non-canonical Mode Input Processing. The initial value of MIN is
1, and the initial value of TIME is 0.
Terminal Size
The number of lines and columns on the terminal's display is
specified in the winsize structure defined by sys/termios.h and includes the
following members:
unsigned short ws_row; /* rows, in characters */ unsigned short ws_col; /* columns, in characters */
unsigned short c_iflag; /* input modes */ unsigned short c_oflag; /* output modes */ unsigned short c_cflag; /* control modes */ unsigned short c_lflag; /* local modes */
0 VINTR EXT
1 VQUIT FS
2 VERASE DEL
3 VKILL NAK
4 VEOF EOT
5
VEOL NUL
6 VEOL2 NUL
The calls that use the termio structure only affect the flags and control characters that can be stored in the termio structure; all other flags and control characters are unaffected.
Modem Lines
On special files representing serial ports, the modem control
lines supported by the hardware can be read, and the modem status lines
supported by the hardware can be changed. The following modem control and status
lines may be supported by a device; they are defined by sys/termios.h:
The software carrier mode can be enabled or disabled using the TIOCSSOFTCAR ioctl. If the software carrier flag for a line is off, the line pays attention to the hardware carrier detect (DCD) signal. The tty device associated with the line cannot be opened until DCD is asserted. If the software carrier flag is on, the line behaves as if DCD is always asserted.
The software carrier flag is usually turned on for locally connected terminals or other devices, and is off for lines with modems.
To be able to issue the TIOCGSOFTCAR and TIOCSSOFTCAR ioctl calls, the tty line should be opened with O_NDELAY so that the open(2V) will not wait for the carrier.
Default Values
The initial termios values upon driver open is
configurable. This is accomplished by setting the "ttymodes" property in the
file /kernel/drv/options.conf. Note: This property is assigned during system
initialization, therefore any change to the "ttymodes" property will not take
effect until the next reboot. The string value assigned to this property should
be in the same format as the output of the stty(1) command with the -g
option.
If this property is undefined, the following termios modes are in effect. The initial input control value is BRKINT, ICRNL, IXON, IMAXBEL. The initial output control value is OPOST, ONLCR, TAB3. The initial hardware control value is
B9600, CS8, CREAD. The initial line-discipline control value is ISIG, ICANON, IEXTEN, ECHO, ECHOK, ECHOE, ECHOKE, ECHOCTL.
IOCTLS
The ioctls supported by devices and STREAMS modules providing
the termios(3)
interface are listed below. Some calls may not be supported by all devices or
modules. The functionality provided by these calls is also available through the
preferred function call interface specified on termios.
"tv" is the system clock timestamp when the event (pulse on the DCD pin) occurred. "serial" is the ordinal of the event, which each consecutive event being assigned the next ordinal. The first event registered gets a "serial" value of 1. The TIOCGPPSEV returns the last event registered; multiple calls will persistently return the same event until a new one is registered. In addition to time stamping and saving the event, if it is of one-second period and of consistently high accuracy, the local system clock will automatically calibrate to it.
TIOCGSOFTCAR The argument is a pointer to an int whose value is 1 or 0, depending on whether the software carrier detect is turned on or off.
TIOCSSOFTCAR The argument is a pointer to an int whose value is 1 or 0. The value of the integer should be 0 to turn off software carrier, or 1 to turn it on.
FILES
files in or under /dev
SEE ALSO
stty(1), fork(2), getsid(2), ioctl(2), setsid(2), sigaction(2), signal(3C), termios(3), signal(5), streamio(7I)