Pane interaction

Send input to a pane and capture its screen to interact with a running program. Attach and send keys provides examples. Sending keys and Capturing output are task guides; this page covers input defaults, capture ranges, and completion handling.

Typing into a pane¶

Two questions come up every time you send something to a pane: should tmux press Enter afterward, and should tmux interpret what you sent as key names (Enter, C-c) rather than literal characters? Choose both explicitly when a command depends on them.

Type without Enter: mpane.send_keys(keys): always literal, key names typed as text

Type + Enter (default): mpane.send_line(text)

How “literal” is chosen: send_keys sends literal text; msend_key_names interprets tmux key names.

Examples¶

msend_keys sends literal text. Use msend_key_names for tmux key names. Passing "Enter" to send_keys types those characters. msend_line appends a carriage return and delivers it with the text in one tmux command.

Send a command line and press Enter:

pane.send_keys("echo hi").await?; // Always literal text.
pane.send_line("echo hi").await?; // text and Enter in one send-keys -l call

Reading a pane back¶

Capture reads the pane’s visible screen by default. Request scrollback when you need earlier output. A capture is a snapshot of terminal contents, including any input echoed by the application.

pane.capture().await?;

Waiting for something to finish¶

A send call completes when input reaches tmux. It does not wait for the shell command to finish. Wait for expected output or a completion signal.

Capture pane output shows capture and waiting examples. Waiting and retrying explains completion conditions and timeouts.