+
+</PRE><H2><a name="h2-HISTORY">HISTORY</a></H2><PRE>
+ The original <EM>curses</EM> in 4BSD (1980) defined <EM>winch</EM> as a macro accessing
+ the <EM>WINDOW</EM> structure member representing character cell data, at that
+ time a <EM>char</EM>, containing only a 7-bit ASCII character code and a
+ "standout" attribute bit, the only one the library supported.
+
+ SVr2 <EM>curses</EM> (1984) extended this approach, widening the character code
+ to eight bits and permitting several attributes to be combined with it
+ by storing them together in a <EM>chtype</EM>, an alias of <EM>unsigned</EM> <EM>short</EM>.
+ Because a macro was used, its value was not type-checked as a function
+ return value could have been. Goodheart documented SVr3 (1987) <EM>winch</EM>
+ as returning an <EM>int</EM>. SVr3.1's (1987) <EM>chtype</EM> became an alias of
+ <EM>unsigned</EM> <EM>long</EM>, using 16 bits for the character code and widening the
+ type in practical terms to 32 bits, as 64-bit Unix systems were not yet
+ in wide use, and fixed-width integral types would not be standard until
+ ISO C99. SVr3.2 (1988) added a 6-bit color pair identifier alongside
+ the attributes.
+
+ X/Open Curses does not specify the sizes of the character code or color
+ pair identifier, nor the quantity of attribute bits, in <EM>chtype</EM>; these
+ are implementation-dependent. <EM>ncurses</EM> uses eight bits for the
+ character code. An application requiring a wider character type, for
+ instance to represent Unicode, should use the wide-character
+ counterparts of these functions.
+
+
+</PRE><H2><a name="h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></H2><PRE>
+ <STRONG><A HREF="curs_in_wch.3x.html">curs_in_wch(3x)</A></STRONG> describes comparable functions of the <EM>ncurses</EM> library
+ in its wide-character configuration (<EM>ncursesw</EM>).
+
+ <STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">curses(3x)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="curs_instr.3x.html">curs_instr(3x)</A></STRONG>