getting mouseclick coordinates with Xlib

Question

I would like to know how to get the x and y coordinates of a mouseclick with Xlib anywhere on the screen. I\'ve found this post which gets the current pointer position

Answer 1

You'll probably need to grab the pointer.

I don't know if you want just want button presses of releases. I've changed it to presses, but you can pick up both with:

XSelectInput(display, root, ButtonPressMask|ButtonReleaseMask) ;

and add the ButtonRelease case back in.

#include 
#include 
#include 
#include 

int main (){
    int x=-1,y=-1;
    XEvent event;
    int button;
    Display *display = XOpenDisplay(NULL);
    if (display == NULL) {
    fprintf(stderr, "Cannot connect to X server!\n");
    exit (EXIT_FAILURE);
    }
    Window root= XDefaultRootWindow(display);
    XGrabPointer(display, root, False, ButtonPressMask, GrabModeAsync,
         GrabModeAsync, None, None, CurrentTime);

    XSelectInput(display, root, ButtonPressMask) ;
    while(1){
    XNextEvent(display,&event);
    switch(event.type){
    case ButtonPress:
        switch(event.xbutton.button){
        case Button1:
        x=event.xbutton.x;
        y=event.xbutton.y;
        button=Button1;
        break;

        case Button3:
        x=event.xbutton.x;
        y=event.xbutton.y;
        button=Button3;
        break;
        default:
        break;

        }
        break;
    default:
        break;
    }
    if(x>=0 && y>=0)break;
    }
    if(button==Button1)printf("leftclick at %d %d \n",x,y);
    else printf("rightclick at %d %d \n",x,y);
    XCloseDisplay(display);
    return 0;
}