ncurses 6.0 - patch 20170304

[ncurses.git] / man / curs_getch.3x

diff --git a/man/curs_getch.3x b/man/curs_getch.3x
index 642205a8c5f72082a9838c7a437371b265c065e8..b8d6a82b05c242a0e23880bc94fdd4e36aa0a701 100644 (file)
--- a/man/curs_getch.3x
+++ b/man/curs_getch.3x
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@
 .\" authorization.                                                           *
 .\"***************************************************************************
 .\"
-.\" $Id: curs_getch.3x,v 1.45 2016/05/15 01:05:18 tom Exp $
+.\" $Id: curs_getch.3x,v 1.49 2016/10/15 16:44:01 tom Exp $
 .TH curs_getch 3X ""
 .na
 .hy 0
@@ -118,6 +118,13 @@ time, the character is passed through;
 otherwise, the function key value is returned.
 For this reason, many terminals experience a delay between the time
 a user presses the escape key and the escape is returned to the program.
+.PP
+In \fBncurses\fP, the timer normally expires after the value in \fBESCDELAY\fP (see \fBcurs_variables\fP(3X)).
+If \fBnotimeout\fP is \fBTRUE\fP, the timer does not expire;
+it is an infinite (or very large) value.
+Because function keys usually begin with an escape character,
+the terminal may appear to hang in notimeout mode after pressing the escape key
+until another key is pressed.
 .SS Ungetting characters
 .PP
 The \fBungetch\fR routine places \fIch\fR back onto the input queue to be
@@ -282,7 +289,7 @@ string (see \fBkey_defined\fP(3X)).
 .PP
 .SH RETURN VALUE
 All routines return the integer \fBERR\fR upon failure and an integer value
-other than \fBERR\fR (\fBOK\fR in the case of ungetch()) upon successful
+other than \fBERR\fR (\fBOK\fR in the case of \fBungetch\fP) upon successful
 completion.
 .RS 3
 .TP 5
@@ -293,7 +300,9 @@ if there is no more room in the FIFO.
 \fBwgetch\fP
 returns ERR
 if the window pointer is null, or
-if its timeout expires without having any data.
+if its timeout expires without having any data, or
+if the execution was interrupted by a signal (\fBerrno\fR will be set to
+\fBEINTR\fR).
 .RE
 .PP
 Functions with a "mv" prefix first perform a cursor movement using
@@ -378,8 +387,6 @@ Programmers concerned about portability should be prepared for either of two
 cases: (a) signal receipt does not interrupt \fBgetch\fR; (b) signal receipt
 interrupts \fBgetch\fR and causes it to return ERR with \fBerrno\fR set to
 \fBEINTR\fR.
-Under the \fBncurses\fR implementation, handled signals never
-interrupt \fBgetch\fR.
 .PP
 The \fBhas_key\fR function is unique to \fBncurses\fR.
 We recommend that
@@ -391,6 +398,7 @@ any code using it be conditionalized on the \fBNCURSES_VERSION\fR feature macro.
 \fBcurs_mouse\fR(3X),
 \fBcurs_move\fR(3X),
 \fBcurs_refresh\fR(3X),
+\fBcurs_variables\fR(3X),
 \fBresizeterm\fR(3X).
 .PP
 Comparable functions in the wide-character (ncursesw) library are