.\"*************************************************************************** .\" Copyright 2018-2023,2024 Thomas E. Dickey * .\" Copyright 1998-2010,2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc. * .\" * .\" Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a * .\" copy of this software and associated documentation files (the * .\" "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including * .\" without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, * .\" distribute, distribute with modifications, sublicense, and/or sell * .\" copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is * .\" furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: * .\" * .\" The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included * .\" in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. * .\" * .\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS * .\" OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF * .\" MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. * .\" IN NO EVENT SHALL THE ABOVE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, * .\" DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR * .\" OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR * .\" THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. * .\" * .\" Except as contained in this notice, the name(s) of the above copyright * .\" holders shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the * .\" sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written * .\" authorization. * .\"*************************************************************************** .\" .\" $Id: curs_printw.3x,v 1.53 2024/04/20 19:18:18 tom Exp $ .TH curs_printw 3X 2024-04-20 "ncurses @NCURSES_MAJOR@.@NCURSES_MINOR@" "Library calls" .ie \n(.g \{\ .ds `` \(lq .ds '' \(rq .\} .el \{\ .ie t .ds `` `` .el .ds `` "" .ie t .ds '' '' .el .ds '' "" .\} . .de bP .ie n .IP \(bu 4 .el .IP \(bu 2 .. .SH NAME \fB\%printw\fP, \fB\%wprintw\fP, \fB\%mvprintw\fP, \fB\%mvwprintw\fP, \fB\%vwprintw\fP, \fB\%vw_printw\fP \- write formatted output to a \fIcurses\fR window .SH SYNOPSIS .nf \fB#include .PP \fBint printw(const char *\fIfmt\fP, ...); \fBint wprintw(WINDOW *\fIwin\fP, const char *\fIfmt\fP, ...); \fBint mvprintw(int \fIy\fP, int \fIx\fP, const char *\fIfmt\fP, ...); \fBint mvwprintw(WINDOW *\fIwin\fP, int \fIy\fP, int \fIx\fP, const char *\fIfmt\fP, ...); .PP \fBint vw_printw(WINDOW *\fIwin\fP, const char *\fIfmt\fP, va_list \fIvarglist\fP); .PP \fI/* obsolete */\fP \fBint vwprintw(WINDOW *\fIwin\fP, const char *\fIfmt\fP, va_list \fIvarglist\fP); .fi .SH DESCRIPTION \fB\%printw\fP, \fB\%wprintw\fP, \fB\%mvprintw\fP, and \fB\%mvwprintw\fP are analogous to \fI\%printf\fP(3). In effect, the string that would be output by \fI\%printf\fP(3) is instead output as though \fB\%waddstr\fP(3X) were used with .I win (or .BR \%stdscr ) as its first argument. .PP \fB\%vwprintw\fP and \fB\%vw_printw\fP are analogous to \fI\%vprintf\fP(3), and perform a \fB\%wprintw\fP using a variable argument list. The third argument is a \fI\%va_list\fP, a pointer to a list of arguments, as defined in \fI\%stdarg.h\fP. .SH RETURN VALUE These functions return .B ERR upon failure and .B OK upon success. .PP In .IR \%ncurses , failure occurs if the library cannot allocate enough memory for the buffer into which the output is formatted, or if the window pointer .I win is null. .PP Functions prefixed with \*(``mv\*('' first perform cursor movement and fail if the position .RI ( y , .IR x ) is outside the window boundaries. .SH NOTES No wide character counterpart functions are defined by the \*(``wide\*('' .I \%ncurses configuration nor by any standard. To format and write a wide-character string to a .I curses window, consider using \fI\%swprintf\fP(3) and \fB\%waddwstr\fP(3X) or similar. .SH PORTABILITY X/Open Curses, Issue 4 describes these functions. It specifies no error conditions for them. .PP .I \%ncurses defines \fB\%vw_printw\fP and \fB\%vwprintw\fP identically to support legacy applications. However, the latter is obsolete. .bP X/Open Curses, Issue 4 Version 2 (1996), marked \fB\%vwprintw\fP as requiring \fI\%varargs.h\fP and \*(``TO BE WITHDRAWN\*('', and specified \fB\%vw_printw\fP using the \fI\%stdarg.h\fP interface. .bP X/Open Curses, Issue 5, Draft 2 (December 2007) marked \fBvwprintw\fP (along with \fBvwscanw\fP and the \fItermcap\fP interface) as withdrawn. After incorporating review comments, this became X/Open Curses, Issue 7 (2009). .bP .I \%ncurses provides \fB\%vwprintw\fP, but marks it as deprecated. .SH HISTORY While \fB\%printw\fP was implemented in 4BSD (November 1980), .\" https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4BSD/usr/src/lib/\ .\" libcurses/printw.c it was unused until 4.2BSD (August 1983), which employed it for games. That early version of .I curses preceded the ANSI C standard of 1989. It did not use \fI\%varargs.h\fP, though that had been available since Seventh Edition Unix (1979). .\" https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V7/usr/include/\ .\" varargs.h In 1991 (a couple of years after SVr4 was generally available, and after the C standard was published), other developers updated the library, using \fI\%stdarg.h\fP internally in 4.4BSD .IR curses . Even with this improvement, BSD .I curses did not use function prototypes (nor even declare functions) in \fI\%curses.h\fP until 1992. .PP SVr2 (1984) documented \fB\%printw\fP and \fB\%wprintw\fP tersely as \*(``printf on \fB\%stdscr\fP\*('' and \*(``printf on \fIwin\fP\*('', respectively. .PP SVr3 (1987) added \fB\%mvprintw\fP and \fB\%mvwprintw\fP, with a three-line summary asserting that they were analogous to \fI\%printf\fP(3), explaining that the string that \fI\%printf\fP(3) would write to the standard output stream would instead be output using \fB\%waddstr\fP to the given window. SVr3 also implemented \fB\%vwprintw\fP, describing its third parameter as a \fI\%va_list\fP, defined in \fI\%varargs.h\fP, and referred the reader to the manual pages for \fI\%varargs\fP and \fI\%vprintf\fP for detailed descriptions. .PP SVr4 (1989) introduced no new variations of \fI\%printw\fP, but provided for using either \fI\%varargs.h\fP or \fI\%stdarg.h\fP to define the \fI\%va_list\fP type. .\" either header declares "va_list", but only one can be used .PP X/Open Curses, Issue 4 (1995), defined \fB\%vw_printw\fP to replace \fB\%vwprintw\fP, stating that its \fI\%va_list\fP type is defined in \fI\%stdarg.h\fP. .SH SEE ALSO \fB\%curses\fP(3X), \fB\%curs_addstr\fP(3X), \fB\%curs_scanw\fP(3X), \fB\%printf\fP(3), \fB\%vprintf\fP(3)