API without using stdin

[dalance]

zellij-org/zellij#538 (comment)

[tavianator]

It's wrong to assume that stdin is connected to the same terminal as stdout/stderr. For a basic example,

tavianator@tachyon $ cargo run </dev/null
    Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 0.02s
     Running `target/debug/termbg`
Check terminal background color
  Term : XtermCompatible
  Latency: 2.855647ms
  Color: detection failed Io { source: Kind(UnexpectedEof) }
  Theme: detection failed Io { source: Kind(UnexpectedEof) }
tavianator@tachyon $ n11;rgb:0000/0000/000011;rgb:0000/0000/0000

Instead, I think the right thing to do is to open the same device as stderr, but for reading.

Crossterm does this, which might be okay too: https://github.com/crossterm-rs/crossterm/blob/58f580eaad4e80ccb8a09541b760a329971bb4bc/src/event/sys/unix/file_descriptor.rs#L66-L82

[joshtriplett]

I don't think it's safe to assume that the stderr device supports reading. For instance, consider redirecting stderr but keeping stdout/stdin.

I think it's a reasonable default assumption to use stdin and stdout. But it does make sense to offer the option of passing separate Read and Write instances.

[tavianator]

I don't think it's safe to assume that the stderr device supports reading. For instance, consider redirecting stderr but keeping stdout/stdin.

RIght, but you can check whether stderr is connected to a TTY with isatty(), and if it's not already open for reading you can find the device with ttyname() and reopen it with the right permissions. I prototyped that here: https://gist.github.com/tavianator/d66d425399a57c51629999ae716bbd24#file-lib-rs-L143

[joshtriplett]

Good point. That does seem reasonable: whatever device you're trying to figure out the properties of is the one you can check like that.

Also, for future use: rust-lang/rust#98070