cursor::position() fails when piping stdout

[jonathanharg]

Describe the bug
A The cursor position could not be read within a normal duration error occurs when trying to call cursor::position() when stdout is being piped (to a file for example).

Likely related to #828.

To Reproduce

fn main() {
    let (x, y) = crossterm::cursor::position().unwrap();
    println!("Cursor position is ({x}, {y})");
}

 ❱ cargo run > output
    Finished `dev` profile [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 0.01s
     Running `target/debug/repro`
thread 'main' panicked at src/main.rs:2:48:
called `Result::unwrap()` on an `Err` value: Custom { kind: Other, error: "The cursor position could not be read within a normal duration" }
note: run with `RUST_BACKTRACE=1` environment variable to display a backtrace
 ❱ cat output
 ❱ [8;1R

Expected behavior

 ❱ cargo run > output
    Finished `dev` profile [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 0.01s
     Running `target/debug/repro`
 ❱ cat output
Cursor position is (0, 3)

Other functions such as terminal::size() work when piping stdout.

A simple change to use /dev/tty instead of stdout doesn't seem to fix the problem.

diff --git a/src/cursor/sys/unix.rs b/src/cursor/sys/unix.rs
index 4734212..92e10e6 100644
--- a/src/cursor/sys/unix.rs
+++ b/src/cursor/sys/unix.rs
@@ -31,9 +31,17 @@ fn read_position() -> io::Result<(u16, u16)> {

 fn read_position_raw() -> io::Result<(u16, u16)> {
     // Use `ESC [ 6 n` to and retrieve the cursor position.
-    let mut stdout = io::stdout();
-    stdout.write_all(b"\x1B[6n")?;
-    stdout.flush()?;
+    const QUERY: &[u8] = b"\x1B[6n";
+
+    let result = std::fs::File::open("/dev/tty").and_then(|mut file| {
+        file.write_all(QUERY)?;
+        file.flush()
+    });
+    if result.is_err() {
+        let mut stdout = io::stdout();
+        stdout.write_all(QUERY)?;
+        stdout.flush()?;
+    }

     loop {
         match poll_internal(Some(Duration::from_millis(2000)), &CursorPositionFilter) {

OS

• macOS Sonoma 14.5

Terminal/Console

• WezTerm