On Saturday 15 February 2003 14:40, Giles Lean wrote:
> Davvid Forrai writes:
> 
> > I used the TERM variable to determine whether it was interactive (i.e.
> > if TERM is set, sh is interactive).
> > 
> > I'm wondering if there's a better or more elegant solution to make this
> > determination.
> 
> You can use test(1) to find out if standard input or standard output
> is a tty:
> 
>      -t file_descriptor
>                    True if the file whose file descriptor number is
>                    file_descriptor is open and is associated with a 
terminal.
> 
> For years my .profile and .kshrc have tested standard output.
> Standard input would seem to make more sense, but it was many years
> ago that I set this up, so I don't know if there is a reason I test
> standard output or not.
> 
> if [ -t 1 ]
> then
>     # interactive stuff
>     # ...
> fi

I've found another way as well: "tty". If it returns "not a tty" then it's 
non-interactive. Else, it's interactive. Then you can push the logic behind 
finding this kind of thing out behind a tool to worry about it for you.

-s