Screen listing of windows in a session

[ragechin]

So, I need a way to have screen (or dbus, whatever) to spit out a list of windows (title and number) that are active in a screen session.

I'm writing a wrapper for common work tasks. Part of the functionality will check if a certain window exists, and if so let me know. The idea here is to prevent accessing the same machine twice. (although, and override option would probably be needed, just in case, but I digress...)

I've searched through the screen man page and don't see anything that'll work. I'm not beyond forking screen and ending up with a custom version. However, I'd like to avoid that if I can.

Thoughts?

Edit: Ideally, I'd like to see something like "screen -S screen_name -window-list" or similar.

[three18ti]

What's wrong with screen -ls

You could potentially (untested):

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;

my @screens = split/\n/ `screen -list`;
shift @screens;
pop @screens;

print "$_ \n" foreach @screens;

[three18ti]

ok, it works, but I missed a comma, also, you need to pop screens twice as the output ends with two new lines:

as a one liner:

perl -e 'my @screens = split/\n/[b],[\b] `screen -ls`; pop @screens for (1 ..2); shift @screens; print "$_ \n" foreach @screens;'

expanded:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
my @screens = split/\n/, `screen -ls`; 
pop @screens for (1 ..2); 
shift @screens;
 
print "$_ \n" foreach @screens;'

[ragechin]

That's the same as 'screen -list', sans parsing.

[shellbox.xen][~]
ag-> perl test.pl
	2828.ag	(Attached) 
[shellbox.xen.andrewglenn.net][~]
ag-> cat test.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
my @screens = split/\n/, `screen -ls`; 
pop @screens for (1 ..2); 
shift @screens;
 
print "$_ \n" foreach @screens;
[shellbox.xen][~]
ag-> screen -list
There is a screen on:
	2828.ag	(Attached)
1 Socket in /var/run/screen/S-ag.

In that screen, are 9 or 10 _windows_. The same output as 'windowlist -b' or C-a " in screen. I need that to be blasted to a shell so I can manipulate as needed.

Edit: Grammatical Errors.

[three18ti]

That's the same as 'screen -list', sans parsing.

Yes, I believe that screen -ls is an alias for screen -list.

In that screen, are 9 or 10 _windows_. The same output as 'windowlist -b' or C-a " in screen. I need that to be blasted to a shell so I can manipulate as needed.

sorry can't help here. What utility has the windowlist command? Unrecognized in my system (and my brain...)

Still not clear on what you are looking for. Are you using Screen to manage an X Window session and that x window session has multiple windows?

[ragechin]

As per goo.gl/RoNko

C-a "
(windowlist -b)
Present a list of all windows for selection. See Selecting.

Example screenshot: i52.tinypic.com/35iujqq.png

I need that to be tossed to STDOUT so I can parse it...

[three18ti]

Ok, I see now. I can get the C-a " to work but I am still unsure of how `windowlist -b` works. (I imagine it is a command instead of a shortcut that calls the same procedure...) My thinking is that understanding this function call is the key to understanding how screen outputs its message.