How to get linux screen title from command line

Question

How can I fetch the title of a screen session from the command line?

Answer 1

I came up with a very small and simple python script with pexpect to do it.

It is handy in multiuser environments where some host is reserved and status is written to screen title by user. It works for me, feel free to make it better. In order to fetch specific session title, you need to modify the script and call for correct session.

If you run this through remote connection as local script (through SSH for example), remember to set export TERM=xterm before execution.

try:
    import pexpect
    import sys
    child=pexpect.spawn('screen -x')
    child.sendcontrol('a');
    child.send('A');
    i = child.expect('Set window.*')
    child.sendcontrol('c');
    child.sendcontrol('a');
    child.send('d');
    TITLE=str(child.after)
    TITLE_P=TITLE.split('7m')
    if str(TITLE_P[-1]) == '':
        print 'Title not found'
    else:
        print str(TITLE_P[-1])
except:
    print 'Could not check screen Title'