-The \fIopts\fP argument is reserved for future use.
-Currently, an application must provide a null pointer as \fIopts\fP.
+X/Open Curses documents the \fIopts\fP 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:
+.bP
+For functions which modify the color, e.g., \fBsetcchar\fP,
+if \fIopts\fP is set it is treated as a pointer to \fBint\fP,
+and used to set the color pair instead of the \fBshort\fP pair parameter.
+.bP
+For functions which retrieve the color, e.g., \fBgetcchar\fP,
+if \fIopts\fP is set it is treated as a pointer to \fBint\fP,
+and used to retrieve the color pair as an \fBint\fP value,
+in addition retrieving it via the standard pointer to \fBshort\fP parameter.
+.SH NOTES