Difference between structures ttysize and winsize? - linux

Question

I have following code to get width and height of screen in Linux.
#ifdef TIOCGSIZE
struct ttysize ts;
ioctl(STDIN_FILENO, TIOCGSIZE, &ts);
cols = ts.ts_cols;
lines = ts.ts_lines;
#elif defined(TIOCGWINSZ)
struct winsize ts;
ioctl(STDIN_FILENO, TIOCGWINSZ, &ts);
cols = ts.ws_col;
lines = ts.ws_row;
#endif /* TIOCGSIZE */
What is difference between ttysize and winsize?

Answer 1

The ttysize was the original implementation for SunOS 3.0 (February 1986), and soon after made obsolete by winsize, which adds the size of the window in pixels. Here's
what the definitions look like in <sys/ttycom.h> from SunOS 4:
/*
* Window/terminal size structure.
* This information is stored by the kernel
* in order to provide a consistent interface,
* but is not used by the kernel.
*
* Type must be "unsigned short" so that types.h not required.
*/
struct winsize {
unsigned short ws_row; /* rows, in characters */
unsigned short ws_col; /* columns, in characters */
unsigned short ws_xpixel; /* horizontal size, pixels - not used */
unsigned short ws_ypixel; /* vertical size, pixels - not used */
};
#define TIOCGWINSZ _IOR(t, 104, struct winsize) /* get window size */
#define TIOCSWINSZ _IOW(t, 103, struct winsize) /* set window size */
/*
* Sun version of same.
*/
struct ttysize {
int ts_lines; /* number of lines on terminal */
int ts_cols; /* number of columns on terminal */
};
#define TIOCSSIZE _IOW(t,37,struct ttysize)/* set tty size */
#define TIOCGSIZE _IOR(t,38,struct ttysize)/* get tty size */
The data types are different (an integer would waste memory), and the fields have different names.
The ttysize structure has long been obsolete: if either is provided by the system, winsize is supported. That wasn't true when porting ncurses to SCO OpenServer in 1997, as noted in this chunk from lib_setup.c:
/*
* SCO defines TIOCGSIZE and the corresponding struct. Other systems (SunOS,
* Solaris, IRIX) define TIOCGWINSZ and struct winsize.
*/
#ifdef TIOCGSIZE
# define IOCTL_WINSIZE TIOCGSIZE
# define STRUCT_WINSIZE struct ttysize
# define WINSIZE_ROWS(n) (int)n.ts_lines
# define WINSIZE_COLS(n) (int)n.ts_cols
#else
# ifdef TIOCGWINSZ
# define IOCTL_WINSIZE TIOCGWINSZ
# define STRUCT_WINSIZE struct winsize
# define WINSIZE_ROWS(n) (int)n.ws_row
# define WINSIZE_COLS(n) (int)n.ws_col
# endif
#endif
You might notice that Linux is not mentioned in the comment. According to comments in asm-sparc64/ioctls.h, the ioctl for ttysize was unsupported as of 2.6.16:
/* Note that all the ioctls that are not available in Linux have a
* double underscore on the front to: a) avoid some programs to
* think we support some ioctls under Linux (autoconfiguration stuff)
*/
...
#define TIOCCONS _IO('t', 36)
#define __TIOCSSIZE _IOW('t', 37, struct sunos_ttysize) /* SunOS Specific */
#define __TIOCGSIZE _IOR('t', 38, struct sunos_ttysize) /* SunOS Specific */
#define TIOCGSOFTCAR _IOR('t', 100, int)
#define TIOCSSOFTCAR _IOW('t', 101, int)
#define __TIOCUCNTL _IOW('t', 102, int) /* SunOS Specific */
#define TIOCSWINSZ _IOW('t', 103, struct winsize)
#define TIOCGWINSZ _IOR('t', 104, struct winsize)
A much earlier comment in 1995 added the definitions (without the double-underscore). Possibly a few programs used that with Linux, although winsize was well established on most platforms before Linux was begun. A little more digging finds that the double-underscore was introduced in 1996 (patch-2.1.9 linux/include/asm-sparc/ioctls.h). Given that, very few programs would have used it with Linux.
Further reading:
Garbage-collect struct ttysize (OpenBSD mailing list)
/dev/console MKS manual page

Answer 2

They have the same function (at least in this case - maybe one structure has an additional field not used here).
Historically some (mainly older) Linux versions have different definitions of the IOCTL codes. Therefore some Linux versions have only TIOCGSIZE defined (using a ttysize structure) and some Linux versions have only TIOCGWINSZ defined.
Using the "#ifdef" construction the program can be compiled for both Linux versions.
Newer Linux versions should have both IOCTLs defined.