Normally, the tty driver buffers typed characters until a newline or
carriage return is typed. The cbreak routine disables line buffering
and erase/kill character-processing (interrupt and flow control charac-
@@ -141,7 +151,7 @@
Initially, whether the terminal returns 7 or 8 significant bits on in-
- put depends on the control mode of the tty driver [see termio(7)]. To
+ put depends on the control mode of the tty driver [see termios(3)]. To
force 8 bits to be returned, invoke meta(win, TRUE); this is equiva-
lent, under POSIX, to setting the CS8 flag on the terminal. To force 7
bits to be returned, invoke meta(win, FALSE); this is equivalent, under
@@ -152,73 +162,78 @@
FALSE) is called.
-
The nodelay option causes getch to be a non-blocking call. If no input
- is ready, getch returns ERR. If disabled (bf is FALSE), getch waits
+ is ready, getch returns ERR. If disabled (bf is FALSE), getch waits
until a key is pressed.
- While interpreting an input escape sequence, wgetch(3x) sets a timer
- while waiting for the next character. If notimeout(win, TRUE) is
- called, then wgetch does not set a timer. The purpose of the timeout
- is to differentiate between sequences received from a function key and
+ While interpreting an input escape sequence, wgetch(3x) sets a timer
+ while waiting for the next character. If notimeout(win, TRUE) is
+ called, then wgetch does not set a timer. The purpose of the timeout
+ is to differentiate between sequences received from a function key and
those typed by a user.
- The raw and noraw routines place the terminal into or out of raw mode.
- Raw mode is similar to cbreak mode, in that characters typed are imme-
- diately passed through to the user program. The differences are that
- in raw mode, the interrupt, quit, suspend, and flow control characters
- are all passed through uninterpreted, instead of generating a signal.
- The behavior of the BREAK key depends on other bits in the tty driver
+ The raw and noraw routines place the terminal into or out of raw mode.
+ Raw mode is similar to cbreak mode, in that characters typed are imme-
+ diately passed through to the user program. The differences are that
+ in raw mode, the interrupt, quit, suspend, and flow control characters
+ are all passed through uninterpreted, instead of generating a signal.
+ The behavior of the BREAK key depends on other bits in the tty driver
that are not set by curses.
-
- When the noqiflush routine is used, normal flush of input and output
- queues associated with the INTR, QUIT and SUSP characters will not be
- done [see termio(7)]. When qiflush is called, the queues will be
- flushed when these control characters are read. You may want to call
- noqiflush in a signal handler if you want output to continue as though
+
+ When the noqiflush routine is used, normal flush of input and output
+ queues associated with the INTR, QUIT and SUSP characters will not be
+ done [see termios(3)]. When qiflush is called, the queues will be
+ flushed when these control characters are read. You may want to call
+ noqiflush in a signal handler if you want output to continue as though
the interrupt had not occurred, after the handler exits.
The timeout and wtimeout routines set blocking or non-blocking read for
- a given window. If delay is negative, blocking read is used (i.e.,
- waits indefinitely for input). If delay is zero, then non-blocking
+ a given window. If delay is negative, blocking read is used (i.e.,
+ waits indefinitely for input). If delay is zero, then non-blocking
read is used (i.e., read returns ERR if no input is waiting). If delay
- is positive, then read blocks for delay milliseconds, and returns ERR
- if there is still no input. Hence, these routines provide the same
- functionality as nodelay, plus the additional capability of being able
+ is positive, then read blocks for delay milliseconds, and returns ERR
+ if there is still no input. Hence, these routines provide the same
+ functionality as nodelay, plus the additional capability of being able
to block for only delay milliseconds (where delay is positive).
The curses library does "line-breakout optimization" by looking for ty-
peahead periodically while updating the screen. If input is found, and
- it is coming from a tty, the current update is postponed until re-
- fresh(3x) or doupdate is called again. This allows faster response to
- commands typed in advance. Normally, the input FILE pointer passed to
+ it is coming from a tty, the current update is postponed until re-
+ fresh(3x) or doupdate is called again. This allows faster response to
+ commands typed in advance. Normally, the input FILE pointer passed to
newterm, or stdin in the case that initscr was used, will be used to do
this typeahead checking. The typeahead routine specifies that the file
- descriptor fd is to be used to check for typeahead instead. If fd is
+ descriptor fd is to be used to check for typeahead instead. If fd is
-1, then no typeahead checking is done.
- All routines that return an integer return ERR upon failure and OK
+ All routines that return an integer return ERR upon failure and OK
(SVr4 specifies only "an integer value other than ERR") upon successful
- completion, unless otherwise noted in the preceding routine descrip-
+ completion, unless otherwise noted in the preceding routine descrip-
tions.
- X/Open does not define any error conditions. In this implementation,
- functions with a window parameter will return an error if it is null.
+ X/Open does not define any error conditions. In this implementation,
+ functions with a window parameter will return an error if it is null.
Any function will also return an error if the terminal was not initial-
ized. Also,
halfdelay
- returns an error if its parameter is outside the range
+ returns an error if its parameter is outside the range
1..255.
@@ -226,13 +241,20 @@
These functions are described in the XSI Curses standard, Issue 4.
The ncurses library obeys the XPG4 standard and the historical practice
- of the AT&T curses implementations, in that the echo bit is cleared
- when curses initializes the terminal state. BSD curses differed from
- this slightly; it left the echo bit on at initialization, but the BSD
- raw call turned it off as a side-effect. For best portability, set
- echo or noecho explicitly just after initialization, even if your pro-
+ of the AT&T curses implementations, in that the echo bit is cleared
+ when curses initializes the terminal state. BSD curses differed from
+ this slightly; it left the echo bit on at initialization, but the BSD
+ raw call turned it off as a side-effect. For best portability, set
+ echo or noecho explicitly just after initialization, even if your pro-
gram remains in cooked mode.
+ The XSI Curses standard is ambiguous on the question of whether raw
+ should disable the CRLF translations controlled by nl and nonl. BSD
+ curses did turn off these translations; AT&T curses (at least as late
+ as SVr1) did not. We chose to do so, on the theory that a programmer
+ requesting raw input wants a clean (ideally 8-bit clean) connection
+ that the operating system will not alter.
+
When keypad is first enabled, ncurses loads the key-definitions for the
current terminal description. If the terminal description includes ex-
tended string capabilities, e.g., from using the -x option of tic, then
@@ -262,8 +284,8 @@
- Note that echo, noecho, halfdelay, intrflush, meta, nodelay, notimeout,
- noqiflush, qiflush, timeout, and wtimeout may be macros.
+ Note that echo, noecho, halfdelay, intrflush, meta, nl, nonl, nodelay,
+ notimeout, noqiflush, qiflush, timeout, and wtimeout may be macros.
The noraw and nocbreak calls follow historical practice in that they
attempt to restore to normal ("cooked") mode from raw and cbreak modes
@@ -274,7 +296,7 @@