Pane.capture
Capture the pane's visible contents, one entry per line.
Source and package
-
Description#
Lines are
TmuxTextbecause a terminal's contents are arbitrary bytes, not guaranteed UTF-8.Errors
Returns an error when tmux refuses the command.
Examples#
Capture complete output lines. Submit a shell command atomically and wait for whole output lines within a deadline. Use Rust 1.85 or newer with Cargo, and tmux 3.3a or newer, on a Unix system. In an empty directory, create a project and add the published crates:
Terminal window $ cargo init --name libtmux-api-example &&cargo add libtmux@0.1.2 tempfile@3.20 &&cargo add tokio@1.40 --features macros,rt,timeReplace
src/main.rswith this complete program. It owns a private tmux socket, applies a ten-second task deadline, and reports both task and cleanup errors.Server::kill()stops its daemon;Server::shutdown()closes its client executor. Successful cleanup removes the temporary directory even when the task fails. View source//! Capture complete output lines after submitting a shell command.use std::error::Error;use std::time::Duration;use libtmux::{NewSessionOptions, PaneWait, Server};type ExampleError = Box<dyn Error>;async fn demonstrate(server: &Server) -> Result<(), ExampleError> {let session = server.new_session(NewSessionOptions::new("capture").command("env ENV=/dev/null PS1='api-ready> ' sh"),).await?;let panes = session.panes().await?;let pane = panes.first().ok_or("session has no pane")?;if pane.wait_for_text("api-ready>", Duration::from_secs(5)).await?!= PaneWait::Arrived{return Err("shell prompt did not become ready".into());}pane.send_line("printf '\\nfirst line\\nsecond line\\n'").await?;loop {let lines = pane.capture().await?;if lines.iter().any(|line| line.as_bytes() == b"first line")&& lines.iter().any(|line| line.as_bytes() == b"second line"){break;}tokio::time::sleep(Duration::from_millis(20)).await;}println!("capture: first line, second line");Ok(())}#[tokio::main(flavor = "current_thread")]async fn main() -> Result<(), ExampleError> {let root = std::path::Path::new("/tmp/libtmux-rs-dev");std::fs::create_dir_all(root)?;let directory = tempfile::Builder::new().prefix("api-capture-").tempdir_in(root)?;std::fs::write(directory.path().join("owner"),std::process::id().to_string(),)?;let server = Server::builder().socket_path(directory.path().join("tmux.sock")).config_file("/dev/null").default_timeout(Duration::from_secs(5)).build()?;let outcome = tokio::time::timeout(Duration::from_secs(10), demonstrate(&server)).await;// Stop the owned daemon before closing the client executor.let killed = server.kill().await;let closed = server.shutdown().await;let cleanup_failed = killed.is_err() || closed.is_err();let mut failures = Vec::new();match outcome {Ok(Ok(())) => {}Ok(Err(error)) => failures.push(format!("example failed: {error}")),Err(error) => failures.push(format!("example deadline: {error}")),}if let Err(error) = killed {failures.push(format!("daemon cleanup: {error}"));}if let Err(error) = closed {failures.push(format!("executor cleanup: {error}"));}if cleanup_failed {let retained = directory.keep();failures.push(format!("inspect retained directory {}", retained.display()));} else if let Err(error) = directory.close() {failures.push(format!("directory cleanup: {error}"));}if failures.is_empty() {Ok(())} else {Err(failures.join("; ").into())}}Run the consumer. Success exits with status 0; setup, operation, deadline or cleanup failures exit unsuccessfully and print diagnostics to stderr:
Terminal window $ cargo run --quietExpected output:
capture: first line, second line
tmux command#
The tmux commands behind capture.
tmux C API#
The C declarations in tmux that implement these commands.
Guides#
Pages that discuss capture.
In other ports#
Read a pane’s visible contents
| Language | Equivalent |
|---|---|
| Python | libtmux |
| Ruby | Lib |
| Lua | libtmux |
| Erlang | tmux |
| Haskell | No public Haskell equivalent is implemented; the current modules expose scalar values and version parsing. |
| TypeScript | pane |
| Go | tmux |
| Java | io |
| Clojure | libtmux |
| Kotlin | io |
| Scala | io |
| C# | Lib |
| F# | Lib |
| C++ | libtmux:: |
| Swift | Server |
| OCaml | Libtmux |
| Perl | Lib Explicit Server operation. Captured entities remain local observations; use a new snapshot to observe changes. |
No equivalent is recorded in PowerShell, Julia, Elixir or Common Lisp.