- The ncurses library provides several functions which let
- an application change the way input from the terminal is
- handled. Some are global, applying to all windows. Oth-
- ers apply only to a specific window. Window-specific set-
- tings are not automatically applied to new or derived win-
- dows. An application must apply these to each window, if
- the same behavior is needed.
-
-
- 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-process-
- ing (interrupt and flow control characters are unaffect-
- ed), making characters typed by the user immediately
- available to the program. The nocbreak routine returns
- the terminal to normal (cooked) mode.
-
- Initially the terminal may or may not be in cbreak mode,
- as the mode is inherited; therefore, a program should call
- cbreak or nocbreak explicitly. Most interactive programs
- using curses set the cbreak mode. Note that cbreak over-
- rides raw. [See curs_getch(3x) for a discussion of how
- these routines interact with echo and noecho.]
+ intintrflush(WINDOW*win/*ignored*/,boolbf);
+ intkeypad(WINDOW*win,boolbf);
+ intmeta(WINDOW*win/*ignored*/,boolbf);
+ intnodelay(WINDOW*win,boolbf);
+ intnotimeout(WINDOW*win,boolbf);
+ intnl(void);
+ intnonl(void);
-
- The echo and noecho routines control whether characters
- typed by the user are echoed by getch as they are typed.
- Echoing by the tty driver is always disabled, but initial-
- ly getch is in echo mode, so characters typed are echoed.
- Authors of most interactive programs prefer to do their
- own echoing in a controlled area of the screen, or not to
- echo at all, so they disable echoing by calling noecho.
- [See curs_getch(3x) for a discussion of how these routines
- interact with cbreak and nocbreak.]
+ voidqiflush(void);
+ voidnoqiflush(void);
+ intraw(void);
+ intnoraw(void);
-
- The halfdelay routine is used for half-delay mode, which
- is similar to cbreak mode in that characters typed by the
- user are immediately available to the program. However,
- after blocking for tenths tenths of seconds, ERR is re-
- turned if nothing has been typed. The value of tenths
- must be a number between 1 and 255. Use nocbreak to leave
+ inthalfdelay(inttenths);
+ voidtimeout(intdelay);
+ voidwtimeout(WINDOW*win,intdelay);
+
+ inttypeahead(intfd);
+
+ /*extensions*/
+ intis_cbreak(void);
+ intis_echo(void);
+ intis_nl(void);
+ intis_raw(void);
+
+
+
+ curses offers configurable parameters permitting an application to
+ control the handling of input from the terminal. Some are global,
+ applying to all windows; others apply only to a specific window. The
+ library does not automatically apply such parameters to new or derived
+ windows; an application must configure each window for the desired
+ behavior.
+
+ Some descriptions below make reference to an inputcharacterreading
+ function: this is wgetch(3x) in the non-wide character curses API and
+ wget_wch(3x) in the wide character API. In addition to the variant
+ forms of these described in ncurses(3x), the curses functions
+ wgetstr(3x) and wget_wstr(3x) and their own variants call the
+ appropriate input character reading function.
+
+
+
+ Normally, the terminal driver buffers typed characters, not delivering
+ them to an application until a line feed or carriage return is typed.
+ cbreak configures the terminal in cbreakmode, which disables line
+ buffering and erase and kill character processing (the interrupt, quit,
+ suspend, and flow control characters are unaffected) and makes
+ characters typed by the user immediately available to the program.
+ nocbreak returns the terminal to normal ("cooked") mode.
+
+ The state of the terminal is unknown to a curses application when it
+ starts; therefore, a program should call cbreak or nocbreak explicitly.
+ Most interactive programs using curses set cbreak mode. Calling cbreak
+ overrides raw. The man page for the input character reading function
+ discusses how cbreak and nocbreak interact with echo and noecho.
+
+
+
+ echo and noecho determine whether characters typed by the user are
+ written to the curses window by the input character reading function as
+ they are typed. curses always disables the terminal driver's own
+ echoing. By default, a curses screen's echo option is set. Authors of
+ most interactive programs prefer to do their own echoing in a
+ controlled area of the screen, or not to echo at all, so they call
+ noecho. The man page for the input character reading function
+ discusses how echo and noecho interact with cbreak and nocbreak.
+
+
+
+ halfdelay configures half-delaymode, which is similar to cbreak mode
+ in that characters typed by the user are immediately available to the
+ program. However, after blocking for tenths tenths of seconds, an
+ input character reading function returns ERR if no input is pending.
+ The value of tenths must be between 1 and 255. Use nocbreak to leave
half-delay mode.
-
- If the intrflush option is enabled (bf is TRUE), and an
- interrupt key is pressed on the keyboard (interrupt,
- break, quit), all output in the tty driver queue will be
- flushed, giving the effect of faster response to the in-
- terrupt, but causing curses to have the wrong idea of what
- is on the screen. Disabling the option (bf is FALSE) pre-
- vents the flush. The default for the option is inherited
- from the tty driver settings. The window argument is ig-
- nored.
+
+ keypad enables recognition of a terminal's function keys. If enabled
+ (bf is TRUE), the input character reading function returns a value
+ representing the function key, such as KEY_LEFT. (Wide-character API
+ users: wget_wch(3x) returns KEY_CODE_YES to indicate the availability
+ of a function key code in its wch parameter.) If disabled (bf is
+ FALSE), curses does not treat function keys specially and the program
+ has to interpret escape sequences itself. If the terminal's keypad can
+ be turned on (made to transmit) and off (made to work locally), keypad
+ configures it consistently with the bf parameter. By default, a
+ window's keypad mode is off.
+
+
+
+ Initially, whether the terminal returns 7- or 8-bit character codes on
+ input depends on the configuration of the terminal driver; see
+ termios(3). To force 8 bits to be returned, call meta(...,TRUE); this
+ is equivalent, on POSIX systems, to setting the CS8 flag on the
+ terminal. To force 7 bits to be returned, call meta(...,FALSE); this
+ is equivalent, on POSIX systems, to setting the CS7 flag on the
+ terminal. The window argument, win, is always ignored. If the term-
+ info string capabilities meta_on (smm) and meta_off (rmm) are defined
+ for the terminal type, enabling meta mode sends smm to the terminal and
+ disabling it sends rmm to the terminal.
+
+
+
+ Initially, whether the terminal reports a carriage return using the
+ character code for a line feed in cbreak or raw modes depends on the
+ configuration of the terminal driver; see termios(3). nl configures
+ the terminal to perform this translation. nonl disables it. In normal
+ (or "cooked") mode, the terminal driver always translates carriage
+ returns to line feeds.
+
+
+
+ nodelay configures the input character reading function to be non-
+ blocking for window win. If no input is ready, the reading function
+ returns ERR. If disabled (bf is FALSE), the reading function does not
+ return until it has input.
+
+
+
+ When the input character reading function reads an ESC character, it
+ sets a timer while waiting for the next character. notimeout(win,
+ TRUE) disables this timer. The purpose of the timeout is to
+ distinguish sequences produced by a function key from those typed by a
+ user. To configure the timeout rather than disabling it, see wtimeout
+ below.
-
- The keypad option enables the keypad of the user's termi-
- nal. If enabled (bf is TRUE), the user can press a func-
- tion key (such as an arrow key) and wgetch returns a sin-
- gle value representing the function key, as in KEY_LEFT.
- If disabled (bf is FALSE), curses does not treat function
- keys specially and the program has to interpret the escape
- sequences itself. If the keypad in the terminal can be
- turned on (made to transmit) and off (made to work local-
- ly), turning on this option causes the terminal keypad to
- be turned on when wgetch is called. The default value for
- keypad is FALSE.
+
+ qiflush and noqiflush configure the terminal driver's treatment of its
+ input and output queues when it handles the interrupt, suspend, or quit
+ characters in cbreak and "cooked" modes; on POSIX systems, see
+ termios(3). The default behavior is inherited from the terminal driver
+ settings. Calling qiflush configures the terminal to flush the queues
+ when any of these events occurs, giving the impression of faster
+ response to user input, but making the library's model of the screen
+ contents incorrect. Calling noqiflush prevents such flushing, but
+ might frustrate impatient users on slow connections if a curses update
+ of the screen is in progress when the event occurs; see typeahead below
+ for a mitigation of this problem. You may want to call noqiflush in a
+ signal handler if you want output to continue after the handler exits
+ as though the interrupt had not occurred.
-
- Initially, whether the terminal returns 7 or 8 significant
- bits on input depends on the control mode of the tty driv-
- er [see termio(7)]. To force 8 bits to be returned, in-
- voke meta(win, TRUE); this is equivalent, 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 POSIX, to setting the CS7 flag on the terminal. The
- window argument, win, is always ignored. If the terminfo
- capabilities smm (meta_on) and rmm (meta_off) are defined
- for the terminal, smm is sent to the terminal when
- meta(win, TRUE) is called and rmm is sent when meta(win,
- FALSE) is called.
+
+ raw configures the terminal to read input in rawmode, which is similar
+ to cbreak mode (see cbreak above) except that it furthermore passes
+ through the terminal's configured interrupt, quit, suspend, and flow
+ control characters uninterpreted to the application, instead of
+ generating a signal or acting on I/O flow. The behavior of the
+ terminal's "Break" key (if any) depends on terminal driver
+ configuration parameters that curses does not handle. noraw returns
+ the terminal to normal ("cooked") mode.
+
+
+
+ wtimeout configures whether a curses input character reading function
+ called on window win uses blocking or non-blocking reads. If delay is
+ negative, a blocking read is used, waiting indefinitely for input. If
+ delay is zero, a non-blocking read is used; an input character reading
+ function returns ERR if no input is pending. If delay is positive, an
+ input character reading function blocks for delay milliseconds, and
+ returns ERR if the delay elapses and there is still no input pending.
+ timeout calls wtimeout on stdscr.
+
+
+
+ Normally, a curses library checks the terminal for input while updating
+ the screen. If any is found, the update is postponed until the next
+ wrefresh(3x) or doupdate(3x) call, allowing faster response to user key
+ strokes. The library tests the file descriptor corresponding to the
+ FILE stream pointer passed to newterm(3x) (or stdin if initscr(3x) was
+ called), for pending input. typeahead instructs curses to test file
+ descriptor fd instead. An fd of -1 disables the check.
+
+
+
+ timeout and wtimeout return no value.
+
+ cbreak, nocbreak, echo, noecho, halfdelay, intrflush, keypad, meta,
+ nodelay, notimeout, nl, nonl, raw, noraw, and typeahead return OK on
+ success and ERR on failure.
+
+ In ncurses, the functions in the previous paragraph return ERR if
+
+ o the terminal is not initialized or
+
+ owin is NULL (except for intrflush and meta, which ignore its
+ value).
+
+ Further, halfdelay returns ERR if delay is outside the range 1..255.
+
+ See section "EXTENSIONS" below for the return values of is_cbreak,
+ is_echo, is_nl, and is_raw.
+
+
+
+ echo, noecho, halfdelay, intrflush, meta, nl, nonl, nodelay, notimeout,
+ noqiflush, qiflush, timeout, and wtimeout may be implemented as macros.
+
+ noraw and nocbreak follow historical practice in that they attempt to
+ restore normal ("cooked") mode from raw and cbreak modes, respectively.
+ Mixing raw/noraw calls with cbreak/nocbreak calls leads to terminal
+ driver control states that are hard to predict or understand; doing so
+ is not recommended.
+
+
+
+ ncurses provides four "is_" functions corresponding to cbreak, echo,
+ nl, and raw, permitting their states to be queried by the application.
+
+ QuerySetReset
+ ------------------------------
+ is_cbreak cbreak nocbreak
+ is_echo echo noecho
+ is_nl nl nonl
+ is_raw raw noraw
+
+ In each case, the function returns
+
+ 1 if the option is set,
+
+ 0 if the option is reset, or
+
+ -1 if the library is not initialized.
+
+
+
+ Applications employing ncurses extensions should condition their use on
+ the visibility of the NCURSES_VERSION preprocessor macro.
+
+ Except as noted in section "EXTENSIONS" above, X/Open Curses, Issue 4
+ describes these functions. It specifies no error conditions for them.
+
+ SVr4 curses describes a successful return value only as "an integer
+ value other than ERR".
+
+ ncurses follows X/Open Curses and the historical practice of System V
+ curses, clearing the terminal driver's "echo" flag when initializing
+ the screen. BSD curses did not, but its raw function turned it off as
+ a side effect. For best portability, call echo or noecho explicitly
+ just after initialization, even if your program remains in normal
+ ("cooked") mode.
+ X/Open Curses is ambiguous regarding whether raw should disable the
+ carriage return and line feed translation feature controlled by nl and
+ nonl. BSD curses did turn off these translations; System V curses did
+ not. ncurses does so, on the assumption that a programmer requesting
+ raw input wants a clean (ideally, 8-bit clean) connection that the
+ operating system will not alter.
-
- 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 until a key is pressed.
+ When keypad is first enabled, ncurses loads the key definitions for the
+ current terminal description. If the terminal description includes
+ extended string capabilities, for example, by using the -x option of
+ tic(1), then ncurses also defines keys for the capabilities whose names
+ begin with "k". Corresponding key codes are generated and (depending
+ on previous loads of terminal descriptions) may differ from one
+ execution of a program to the next. The generated key codes are
+ recognized by keyname(3x), which then returns a name beginning with "k"
+ denoting the terminfo capability name rather than "K", used for curses
+ key names. On the other hand, an application can use define_key(3x) to
+ bind a specific key to a string of the programmer's choice. This
+ feature enables an application to check for its presence with
+ tigetstr(3x), and reassign the key code to match its own needs.
- While interpreting an input escape sequence, wgetch sets a
- timer while waiting for the next character. If notime-
- out(win, TRUE) is called, then wgetch does not set a
- timer. The purpose of the timeout is to differentiate be-
- tween sequences received from a function key and those
- typed by a user.
+ Low-level applications can use tigetstr(3x) to obtain the definition of
+ any string capability. curses applications use the input character
+ reading function to obtain key codes from input and rely upon the order
+ in which the string capabilities are loaded. Multiple key capability
+ strings can have the same value, but the input character reading
+ function can report only one key code. Most curses implementations
+ (including ncurses) load key definitions in the order they appear in
+ the strfnames array of string capability names; see term_variables(3x).
+ The last capability read using a particular definition determines the
+ key code to be reported. In ncurses, extended capabilities can be
+ interpreted as key definitions. These are loaded after the predefined
+ keys, and if a capability's value is the same as a previously loaded
+ key definition, the later definition is the one used.
-
- 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 immediately passed through to the us-
- er program. The differences are that in raw mode, the in-
- terrupt, 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.
+
+ 4BSD curses (1980) introduced echo, noecho, nl, nonl, raw, and noraw.
+ SVr2 (1984) featured a new terminal driver, extending the curses API to
+ support it with cbreak, nocbreak, intrflush, keypad, meta, nodelay, and
+ typeahead.
-
- 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
- the interrupt had not occurred, after the handler exits.
+ SVr3 (1987) added halfdelay, notimeout, and wtimeout. qiflush and
+ noqiflush appeared in SVr3.1 (1987), at which point intrflush became a
+ wrapper for either of these functions, depending on the value of its
+ Boolean argument. SVr3.1 also added timeout.
+ ncurses 6.5 (2024) introduced is_cbreak, is_echo, is_nl, and is_raw.
-
- 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 in-
- put). 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 rou-
- tines provide the same functionality as nodelay, plus the
- additional capability of being able to block for only de-
- lay milliseconds (where delay is positive).
-
-
-
- The curses library does "line-breakout optimization" by
- looking for typeahead periodically while updating the
- screen. If input is found, and it is coming from a tty,
- the current update is postponed until refresh 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 -1, then no
- typeahead checking is done.
-
-
-
- All routines that return an integer return ERR upon fail-
- ure and OK (SVr4 specifies only "an integer value other
- than ERR") upon successful completion, unless otherwise
- noted in the preceding routine descriptions.
-
- X/Open does not define any error conditions. In this im-
- plementation, functions with a window parameter will re-
- turn an error if it is null. Any function will also re-
- turn an error if the terminal was not initialized. Also,
-
- halfdelay
- returns an error if its parameter is outside
- the range 1..255.
-
-
-
- These functions are described in the XSI Curses standard,
- Issue 4.
-
- The ncurses library obeys the XPG4 standard and the his-
- torical 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 portabili-
- ty, set echo or noecho explicitly just after initializa-
- tion, even if your program remains in cooked mode.
-
- When keypad is first enabled, ncurses loads the key-defi-
- nitions for the current terminal description. If the ter-
- minal description includes extended string capabilities,
- e.g., from using the -x option of tic, then ncurses also
- defines keys for the capabilities whose names begin with
- "k". The corresponding keycodes are generated and (de-
- pending on previous loads of terminal descriptions) may
- differ from one execution of a program to the next. The
- generated keycodes are recognized by the keyname function
- (which will then return a name beginning with "k" denoting
- the terminfo capability name rather than "K", used for
- curses key-names). On the other hand, an application can
- use define_key to establish a specific keycode for a given
- string. This makes it possible for an application to
- check for an extended capability's presence with tigetstr,
- and reassign the keycode to match its own needs.
-
- Low-level applications can use tigetstr to obtain the def-
- inition of any particular string capability. Higher-level
- applications which use the curses wgetch and similar func-
- tions to return keycodes rely upon the order in which the
- strings are loaded. If more than one key definition has
- the same string value, then wgetch can return only one
- keycode. Most curses implementations (including ncurses)
- load key definitions in the order defined by the array of
- string capability names. The last key to be loaded deter-
- mines the keycode which will be returned. In ncurses, you
- may also have extended capabilities interpreted as key
- definitions. These are loaded after the predefined keys,
- and if a capability's value is the same as a previously-
- loaded key definition, the later definition is the one
- used.
-
-
-
- Note that echo, noecho, halfdelay, intrflush, meta, node-
- lay, 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 respectively. Mixing raw/noraw
- and cbreak/nocbreak calls leads to tty driver control
- states that are hard to predict or understand; it is not
- recommended.
-
-
-
- curses(3x), curs_getch(3x), curs_initscr(3x),
- curs_util(3x), define_key(3x), termio(7)
-
-
-
- curs_inopts(3x)
+ Formerly, ncurses used nl and nonl to control the conversion of
+ newlines to carriage return/line feed on output as well as input.
+ X/Open Curses documents the use of these functions only for input.
+ This difference arose from converting the pcurses source (1986), which
+ used ioctl(2) calls and the sgttyb structure, to termios (the POSIX
+ terminal API). In the former, both input and output were controlled
+ via a single option "CRMOD", while the latter separates these features.
+ Because that conversion interferes with output optimization, ncurses
+ 6.2 (2020) amended nl and nonl to eliminate their effect on output.
+
+
+