How to get the current position of cursor from output screen in C?

Last Updated : 06 Mar, 2019

The given task is to get the current position of the cursor from the output screen in C.

Approach: There is a predefined function wherex() in C language that returns the x coordinate of the cursor in the current output screen. And wherey() function that returns the y coordinate of the cursor in current output screen. Both the functions are defined in conio.h headerfile.

wherex(): This method returns the horizontal position of the cursor.
Syntax:
```
int wherex();
```
Parameters: This method do not accepts any parameters.

Return Value: This method returns an integer value in range 1 to 80, or as per the system’s screen size.
wherey(): This method returns the vertical position of the cursor.
Syntax:
```
int wherey();
```
Parameters: This method do not accepts any parameters.

Return Value: This method returns an integer value in range 1 to 50, or as per the system’s screen size.

Note: This code is according to turbo C.

Example 1:

// C program to get the current 
// cursor position from output screen 
  
#include <conio.h> 
#include <stdio.h> 
  
void main() 
{ 
    clrscr(); 
  
    // print current location of x. 
    printf("current location of x is:%d\n", wherex()); 
  
    // print the current location of y. 
    print("currentlocation of y is:%d", wherey()); 
  
    getch(); 
} 

Output:

Example 2:

// C program to get the current 
// cursor position from output screen 
  
#include <conio.h> 
#include <stdio.h> 
  
void main() 
{ 
    clrscr(); 
  
    // takes the cursor to given coordinates 
    // here at (10, 15). 
    gotoxy(10, 15); 
  
    // print current location of x. 
    printf("current location of x is:%d\n", wherex()); 
  
    // print the current location of y. 
    print("currentlocation of y is:%d", wherey()); 
  
    getch(); 
} 