Cfrtjryk

I cannot install any tools like screen or xproc on the box. I dont need to modify the title, I only need to find the window title name.

echo -e "33]0;[title]7"; modifies the title I know. But I just want to know the existing title name.

Try the following, but notice that the compatibility is pretty limited. See the notes below.

get_title(){(

        set -e

        ss=`stty -g`; trap 'exit 11' INT QUIT TERM; trap 'stty "$ss"' EXIT

        e=`printf '33'`; st=`printf '234'`; t=

        stty -echo -icanon min 0 time "${2:-2}"

        printf "${1:-33[21t}" > `tty`

        while c=`dd bs=1 count=1 2>/dev/null` && [ "$c" ]; do

                t="$t$c"

                case "$t" in

                $e*$e\|$e*$st)

                        t=${t%$e\}; t=${t%$st}; printf '%sn' "${t#$e][lL]}";

                        exit 0;;

                $e*);;

                *) break;;

                esac

        done

        printf %s "$t"; exit 1

)}

Example:

$ get_title

$ title=`get_title`

Or, if your script's stdin is not the terminal:

$ title=`get_title </dev/tty`

The stty + dd kludge tries to make sure that the script won't just block if the terminal doesn't report anything in response to the e[21t escape. This (or a better) approach could be also used with other control sequences (eg. to get the cursor position).

Notes:

Since the e[21t escape is considered "insecure", extra configuration is needed in order to make it work:

For xterm: echo '*.vt100.allowWindowOps: true' | xrdb -override

For urxvt: echo 'Rxvt.insecure: true' | xrdb -override

It will not work at all in vte-based terminals like gnome-terminal, mate-terminal, xfce4-terminal, etc, since they report either a fake ("Terminal") or empty title in response.

mlterm doesn't need anything special, but it will crash (!) if the title wasn't set before with e]2;TITLEa.

screen will report its own window title (the one that was set with the -t option or the C-a A command, not the title of the window it's running in.

It's blocked and not supported in tmux.