NAME

Terminal::Capabilities - Container for terminal capabilities, with useful defaults

SYNOPSIS

use Terminal::Capabilities;
use Terminal::Capabilities::Autodetect;
use Terminal::Capabilities::Summarize;

# Autodetect terminal and its capabilities via examination of terminal-related
# environment variables.  This does not touch the process table or run any
# subprocesses, so it should be quick and safe.
my ($autocaps, $terminal, $version) = terminal-env-detect;

# Autodetect and include a one-line compact human-readable summary of detected features
my ($caps, $terminal, $version, $summary) = summarize-autodetection;

# Create a terminal capabilities object with DEFAULT settings based on the most
# commonly well-supported capabilities, as determined by submissions to the
# Terminal::Tests project.  This method does NO AUTODECTION.
my Terminal::Capabilities $caps .= new;

# Examine individual capabilities
say $caps.symbol-set;   # ASCII by default, as it is the most compatible
say $caps.vt100-boxes;  # False by default, because ASCII does not require it
say $caps.color8bit;    # True  by default, since most terminals support it

# Override default symbol set
my $symbol-set = Terminal::Capabilities::SymbolSet::Uni1;
my $caps       = Terminal::Capabilities.new(:$symbol-set);

# Symbol set affects default for other features
say $caps.vt100-boxes;  # True, because WGL4R and all larger sets require it

# Determine best available symbol set supported by terminal out of a list
say $caps.best-symbol-set(< ASCII WGL4 MES2 Uni7 >);  # MES2, best <= Uni1

# Select from a list of options keyed by required symbol set
my %arrows = ASCII  => « < > »,
             Latin1 => < « » >,
             WGL4   => < ◄ ► >,
             Uni1   => < ◀ ▶ >,
             Uni7   => < ⯇ ⯈ >;
say $caps.best-symbol-choice(%arrows);  # ◀ ▶ , the Uni1 option

# Map a possibly mis-cased string to a SymbolSet enumerant (for processing
# user symbol set config requests)
my $symbol-set = symbol-set('cp1252');  # Terminal::Capabilities::SymbolSet::CP1252

DESCRIPTION

Terminal::Capabilities is a relatively simple module that collects information about the capabilities of modern terminals (it assumes at least the ASCII character set, and ANSI/DEC VT style control sequence emulation).

The Terminal::Capabilities::Autodetect child module provides routines for autodetecting the user's terminal and its capabilities. The first such routine only examines environment variables, thus avoiding creating subprocesses, performing asynchronous queries to the terminal emulator, or mucking about in the user's process table. Simply call the `terminal-env-detect` routine to obtain a pre-populated Terminal::Capabilities object with the autodetection's best guesses, along with the terminal type detected and terminal program version if available:

use Terminal::Capabilities::Autodetect;
my ($caps, $type, $version) = terminal-env-detect;

If you'd also like to have a summary line that you can show the user or add to a log, you can instead use an extended version of the autodetection routine:

use Terminal::Capabilities::Summarize;
my ($caps, $type, $version, $summary) = summarize-autodetection;

Conversely, the core Terminal::Capabilities module does not do any autodetection, merely serving as a standard for collecting capabilities detected or configured through other means. That said, there are reasonable defaults for each of the capability flags based on the collected submissions to the Terminal::Tests project. The default values represent the capabilities that are universally supported (or nearly so -- there are a few truly deeply broken terminals for which nearly nothing works properly which are considered out of scope for the defaults).

One quirk of this method of determining defaults is that 8-bit color is more uniformly supported by modern terminals than various color and style attributes that were "standardized" decades earlier. Thus color8bit is by default True, while colorbright and italic are by default False.

Known Symbol Sets

In superset order, from smallest to largest:

The difference between WGL4R and full WGL4 is that the latter includes 18 additional symbol and drawing glyphs needed for full compatibility with CP437, the code page (glyph set) used in IBM PC-compatible video ROMs and thus all DOS programs. As these 18 are considered optional in the WGL4 spec, WGL4R allows specifying only the symbols required by WGL4, and thus guaranteed to work in any terminal font with at least minimal WGL4 compatibility.

Known Feature Flags

Several sets of flag (Bool) attributes indicate support for various features. There are sets for classic ANSI attributes, color support, emoji handling, and drawing symbols (often generated internally by the terminal emulator):

Quirks

Additional flag (Bool) attributes indicate rendering quirks that may require workarounds for some terminals.

.narrow-emoji-needs-space

Narrow default-text characters displayed as emoji using VS16 must be followed by a single space to prevent corrupted rendering, such as cut off, overlapping, or missing glyphs.

AUTHOR

Geoffrey Broadwell <[email protected]>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

Copyright 2023, 2025-2026 Geoffrey Broadwell

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the Artistic License 2.0.