How can I get the current mouse (pointer) position co-ordinates in X

Question

This can either be some sample C code or a utility that will show me either gui or on the console it doesn\'t matter, but I have to be able to \"command\" it to grab the co-

Answer 1

xinput can be used to print the full device state of any input device.

First you need to discover your device id:

$ xinput --list | grep -i mouse                                                                                                                                
⎜   ↳ Logitech USB Receiver Mouse               id=11   [slave  pointer  (2)]

then you can ask for state:

$ xinput --query-state 11;
2 classes :
ButtonClass
        button[1]=up
        button[2]=up
        button[3]=up
        button[4]=up
        button[5]=up
        button[6]=up
        button[7]=up
        button[8]=up
        button[9]=up
        button[10]=up
        button[11]=up
        button[12]=up
        button[13]=up
        button[14]=up
        button[15]=up
        button[16]=up
        button[17]=up
        button[18]=up
        button[19]=up
        button[20]=up
ValuatorClass Mode=Relative Proximity=In
        valuator[0]=274
        valuator[1]=886
        valuator[2]=0
        valuator[3]=675

Or just a loop:

while sleep .2; do xinput --query-state $(xinput --list | grep -i mouse | cut -d= -f2 | cut -f1| head -1); done