+
+</PRE><H2><a name="h2-EXTENSIONS">EXTENSIONS</a></H2><PRE>
+ X/Open Curses documents the <EM>opts</EM> argument as reserved for future use,
+ saying that it must be null. This implementation uses that parameter
+ in ABI 6 for the functions which have a color pair parameter to support
+ extended color pairs:
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> For functions which modify the color, e.g., <STRONG>setcchar</STRONG>, if <EM>opts</EM> is
+ set it is treated as a pointer to <STRONG>int</STRONG>, and used to set the color
+ pair instead of the <STRONG>short</STRONG> pair parameter.
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> For functions which retrieve the color, e.g., <STRONG>getcchar</STRONG>, if <EM>opts</EM> is
+ set it is treated as a pointer to <STRONG>int</STRONG>, and used to retrieve the
+ color pair as an <STRONG>int</STRONG> value, in addition retrieving it via the
+ standard pointer to <STRONG>short</STRONG> parameter.
+
+
+</PRE><H2><a name="h2-PORTABILITY">PORTABILITY</a></H2><PRE>
+ The <STRONG>CCHARW_MAX</STRONG> symbol is specific to <EM>ncurses</EM>. X/Open Curses does not
+ provide details for the layout of the <STRONG>cchar_t</STRONG> structure. It tells what
+ data are stored in it:
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> a spacing character (<STRONG>wchar_t</STRONG>, i.e., 32-bits).
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> non-spacing characters (again, <STRONG>wchar_t</STRONG>'s).
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> attributes (at least 16 bits, inferred from the various ACS- and
+ WACS-flags).
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> color pair (at least 16 bits, inferred from the <STRONG>unsigned</STRONG> <STRONG>short</STRONG>
+ type).
+
+ The non-spacing characters are optional, in the sense that zero or more
+ may be stored in a <STRONG>cchar_t</STRONG>. XOpen/Curses specifies a limit:
+
+ Implementations may limit the number of non-spacing characters that
+ can be associated with a spacing character, provided any limit is
+ at least 5.
+
+ The Unix implementations at the time follow that limit:
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> AIX 4 and OSF1 4 use the same declaration with an array of 5 non-
+ spacing characters <EM>z</EM> and a single spacing character <EM>c</EM>.
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> HP-UX 10 uses an opaque structure with 28 bytes, which is large
+ enough for the 6 <STRONG>wchar_t</STRONG> values.
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> Solaris <EM>xpg4</EM> curses uses a single array of 6 <STRONG>wchar_t</STRONG> values.
+
+ This implementation's <STRONG>cchar_t</STRONG> was defined in 1995 using <STRONG>5</STRONG> for the total
+ of spacing and non-spacing characters (<STRONG>CCHARW_MAX</STRONG>). That was probably
+ due to a misreading of the AIX 4 header files, because the X/Open
+ Curses document was not generally available at that time. Later (in
+ 2002), this detail was overlooked when beginning to implement the
+ functions using the structure.
+
+ In practice, even four non-spacing characters may seem enough. X/Open
+ Curses documents possible uses for non-spacing characters, including
+ using them for ligatures between characters (a feature apparently not
+ supported by any curses implementation). Unicode does not limit the
+ (analogous) number of combining characters, so some applications may be
+ affected.
+
+
+</PRE><H2><a name="h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></H2><PRE>
+ <STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">curses(3x)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="curs_attr.3x.html">curs_attr(3x)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="curs_color.3x.html">curs_color(3x)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG>wcwidth(3)</STRONG>