title: Terminal in golang: syscall vs os/exec stty
body: <p>This is how one can get a (POSIX) terminal size with a syscall in go:</p>
  
  <pre><code>func getTermDim() (width, height int, err error) {
      var termDim [4]uint16
      if _, _, err := syscall.Syscall6(syscall.SYS_IOCTL, uintptr(0), uintptr(syscall.TIOCGWINSZ), uintptr(unsafe.Pointer(&amp;termDim)), 0, 0, 0); err != 0 {
          return -1, -1, err
      }
      return int(termDim[1]), int(termDim[0]), nil
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Now, the same thing, calling stty with os/exec:</p>
  
  <pre><code>func getTermDim() (width, height int, err error) {
          cmd := exec.Command("stty", "size")
          cmd.Stdin = os.Stdin
          var termDim []byte
          if termDim, err = cmd.Output(); err != nil {
                  return
          }
          fmt.Sscan(string(termDim), &amp;height, &amp;width)
          return
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>In practice, the first solution can get pretty heavy and unreadable, when one has to put a terminal in raw mode, set up options etc. When one is used to stty (e.g. in shell scripts), the second solution is so much easier!</p>
  
  <p>So my question is: what are the benefits of using the first solution? It is speed? Is it that we cannot rely on the stty command to be installed on the host machine? Anything else I don't think of?</p>
  
  <p>In a nutshell, what is the "<em>risk</em>" or the "<em>cost</em>" of using stty vs a syscall?</p>