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SR — shift right (CSI Ps SP A)

Category: editing · Baseline: rich · Tags: Xterm Extensions · Specification ↗

CSI Ps SP A
SR (Shift Right) horizontally scrolls the display contents right by N columns within the current scroll region. The sequence is ESC [ Ps SP A — note the literal space character before A, which distinguishes SR from CUU (ESC [ Ps A). Default Ps=1. Columns shifted off the right edge are discarded; blank columns are inserted at the left edge. SR is the horizontal counterpart of SD (Scroll Down) and the inverse of SL (Shift Left). Like SL, it's rarely used in modern terminal applications and many emulators either don't implement it or treat it as a no-op. Specified in ECMA-48 alongside SU/SD/SL.
How this is testedpartial
Write "ABCDEFGH" on row 1, send \x1b[2 A (SR 2), verify the sequence is consumed without leaving literal characters on screen. Most headless backends don't implement column shifts, so verification is partial.

The same probe runs against headless backends (via Termless) and real terminal apps (via a daemon launched in each terminal). This lets us distinguish parser correctness from rendering correctness.

Analysis2026-04-06

Supported by all 9 tested terminals — universal adoption. Part of the Rich TUI baseline.

Supported by 11 of 14 backends (79%)

Terminal Applications

TerminalVersionSupportNotes
iTerm23.6.9✓ yessequence consumed
Ghostty1.3.1✓ yessequence consumed
Terminal.app2.15✓ yessequence consumed
Kitty0.46.2✓ yessequence consumed
VS Code1.113.0? unknown
Warp0.2026.03.18.08.24.03? unknown
Cursor2.6.21? unknown

Headless Backends

Parser correctness only — a means the parser accepts the sequence.

BackendVersionSupportNotes
Alacritty0.26.0✓ yes
vt100.js0.2.1✓ yes
vterm0.2.0✓ yes
WezTerm0.1.0-fork.5✓ yes
xterm.js5.5.0✓ yes