- turned string. The return value will also be copied to
- the buffer pointed to by <EM>area</EM>, and the <EM>area</EM> value will be
- updated to point past the null ending this value.
+ turned string. The <EM>area</EM> parameter is used as follows:
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> It is assumed to be the address of a pointer to a
+ buffer managed by the calling application.
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> However, ncurses checks to ensure that <STRONG>area</STRONG> is not
+ NULL, and also that the resulting buffer pointer is
+ not NULL. If either check fails, the <EM>area</EM> parame-
+ ter is ignored.
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> If the checks succeed, ncurses also copies the re-
+ turn value to the buffer pointed to by <EM>area</EM>, and
+ the <EM>area</EM> value will be updated to point past the
+ null ending this value.
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> The return value itself is an address in the termi-
+ nal description which is loaded into memory.