DECRQSS: Request Status String

Status: DEC, with a Disputed reply code.

DECRQSS asks the terminal to report the current setting of one control function, encoded as the parameters that would reproduce it. It is the only general way to read back values such as the current SGR attributes or the scrolling margins.

Syntax

DCS $ q Pt ST                 request
DCS Ps $ r Pt ST              reply (DECRPSS)

Pt in the request is the intermediate and final bytes of the control to query, for example m for SGR or SP q for DECSCUSR. Pt in the reply is the same suffix preceded by the current parameters, so that CSI followed by the reply's Pt would set the reported value.

The disputed status code

The VT510 reference manual defines the reply Ps as 0 for a valid request and 1 for an invalid one. XTerm Control Sequences defines the opposite: DCS 1 $ r … ST for a valid request and DCS 0 $ r … ST for an invalid one. xterm has used its reading for so long that nearly every emulator implementing DECRQSS follows xterm, and terminfo-aware software expects 1 to mean valid.

An application should accept a reply as valid when Ps is 1 and the payload is non-empty, treat Ps 0 with an empty payload as "invalid", and distrust any terminal claiming DEC semantics until confirmed by a probe. Emulator authors should follow xterm and document that they do.

Common requests

Pt	Control	Reply payload
m	SGR	Current attributes, e.g. 0;1;38:2::255;0;0m
r	DECSTBM	top;bottomr scrolling margins
s	DECSLRM	left;rights margins (only meaningful with mode 69)
SP q	DECSCUSR	Ps SP q current cursor style
" q	DECSCA	Ps " q character protection attribute
" p	DECSCL	Pl;Pc " p conformance level
t	DECSLPP	Ps t lines per page
$ \|	DECSCPP	Ps $ \| columns per page
* \|	DECSNLS	Ps * \| number of lines

The SGR reply is the one most applications care about and the one with the most variation: terminals differ in whether they emit colon-separated extended colors, whether they include the leading 0, and whether they report underline style.

Probe

tools/query '\033P$qm\033\\'      # current SGR
tools/query '\033P$q q\033\\'     # cursor style
tools/query '\033P$qr\033\\'      # scrolling margins

Sources

• VT510 Video Terminal Programmer Information: DECRQSS
• VT510: DECRPSS
• XTerm Control Sequences

Compatibility

Feature support by terminal. Imported claims have not been reverified; unknown is not unsupported.

Feature / stable ID	Alacritty	Apple Terminal	ConPTY (conhost)	Contour	DomTerm	foot	Ghostty	iTerm2	kitty	Konsole	mintty	mlterm	PuTTY	Revenant	RLogin	st	tmux	rxvt-unicode	VTE	wayst	WezTerm	Windows Terminal	xterm	xterm.js
DECRQSS dcs-decrqss	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	SupportedImported · unverified	Unknown	SupportedImported · unverified	SupportedImported · unverified	SupportedImported · unverified	SupportedImported · unverified	Unknown	SupportedImported · unverified	Unknown	UnknownImported · unverified	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	SupportedImported · unverified	Unknown	SupportedImported · unverified	Unknown	SupportedImported · unverified	PartialImported · unverified	SupportedImported · unverified	SupportedImported · unverified