ISATTY(3) Linux Programmer's Manual ISATTY(3) NAME isatty - test whether a file descriptor refers to a terminal SYNOPSIS #include <unistd.h> int isatty(int fd); DESCRIPTION The isatty() function tests whether fd is an open file descriptor referring to a terminal. RETURN VALUE isatty() returns 1 if fd is an open file descriptor referring to a terminal; otherwise 0 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the error. ERRORS EBADF fd is not a valid file descriptor. ENOTTY fd refers to a file other than a terminal. On some older kernels, some types of files resulted in the error EINVAL in this case (which is a violation of POSIX, which specifies the error ENOTTY). ATTRIBUTES For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see attributes(7). ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┬───────────────┬─────────┐ │Interface │ Attribute │ Value │ ├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────────────┼─────────┤ │isatty() │ Thread safety │ MT-Safe │ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┴───────────────┴─────────┘ CONFORMING TO POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, SVr4, 4.3BSD. SEE ALSO fstat(2), ttyname(3) Linux 2021-03-22 ISATTY(3)