#include <ghostty/vt/selection.h>

Data Fields
GhosttyGridRef	start
GhosttyGridRef	end
bool	rectangle

Detailed Description

A range of terminal content between two cells.

A selection is described by the two cells at its ends, start and end. Both ends are included in the selection. By default the selection is linear: it runs from start to end the way text flows, wrapping from the end of one row to the start of the next. Set rectangle to true to select a rectangular block instead, with start and end at opposite corners.

The ends keep the direction the user selected in. If the user dragged up or to the left, start comes after end in the terminal. Don't assume start is the top-left end. Use ghostty_terminal_selection_ordered() when you need the ends in order.

Both ends are untracked grid references, so a selection is only valid until the next call that changes the terminal. To keep a selection across changes, track its ends with GhosttyTrackedGridRef and build a new GhosttySelection from fresh snapshots when you need one.

Start with a zero-initialized value. The example below selects the first ten cells of the second row and makes that the terminal's active selection.

GhosttyPoint start_pt = {
    .tag = GHOSTTY_POINT_TAG_ACTIVE,
    .value = { .coordinate = { .x = 0, .y = 1 } },
};
GhosttyPoint end_pt = {
    .tag = GHOSTTY_POINT_TAG_ACTIVE,
    .value = { .coordinate = { .x = 9, .y = 1 } },
};
 
GhosttySelection selection = {0};
ghostty_terminal_grid_ref(terminal, start_pt, &selection.start);
ghostty_terminal_grid_ref(terminal, end_pt, &selection.end);
ghostty_terminal_set(terminal, GHOSTTY_TERMINAL_OPT_SELECTION, &selection);

The layout of this struct is frozen. It is 40 bytes on 64-bit targets and 20 bytes on 32-bit targets such as wasm32. If it ever needs to hold more, that will be a new type.