tty

Return user's terminal name (POSIX)

Syntax:

tty [-s]

Options:

-s

Be silent; don't output the terminal name. This option is useful if you're concerned only with tty's exit status.

Description:

The tty utility writes to the standard output the name of the terminal that's open as standard input. If standard input isn't a terminal (e.g. it's a file such as /dev/null), the string not a tty is output instead.

The -s option is deprecated by POSIX; you can achieve the effect of this option, simply and portably, by redirecting output to /dev/null or by using the shell builtin, test -c.

Examples:

The following command prints /dev/con1 if run on console 1:

tty

The following command prints not a tty because /dev/null causes isatty() to return 0:

tty </dev/null

Exit status:

0

Success.

> 0

An error occurred.