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-<H1>ncurses 3x</H1>
-<HR>
+<H1 class="no-header">ncurses 3x</H1>
<PRE>
-<!-- Manpage converted by man2html 3.0.1 -->
<STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">ncurses(3x)</A></STRONG> <STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">ncurses(3x)</A></STRONG>
-</PRE>
-<H2>NAME</H2><PRE>
+</PRE><H2><a name="h2-NAME">NAME</a></H2><PRE>
<STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> - CRT screen handling and optimization package
-</PRE>
-<H2>SYNOPSIS</H2><PRE>
+</PRE><H2><a name="h2-SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a></H2><PRE>
<STRONG>#include</STRONG> <STRONG><curses.h></STRONG>
-</PRE>
-<H2>DESCRIPTION</H2><PRE>
+</PRE><H2><a name="h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a></H2><PRE>
The <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> library routines give the user a terminal-
independent method of updating character screens with rea-
- sonable optimization. This implementation is ``new
- curses'' (ncurses) and is the approved replacement for
- 4.4BSD classic curses, which has been discontinued. This
- describes <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> version 5.7 (patch 20100918).
+ sonable optimization. This implementation is "new curses"
+ (ncurses) and is the approved replacement for 4.4BSD clas-
+ sic curses, which has been discontinued. This describes
+ <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> version 6.0 (patch 20161224).
The <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> library emulates the curses library of System
V Release 4 UNIX, and XPG4 (X/Open Portability Guide)
lation; use of soft label keys; terminfo capabilities; and
access to low-level terminal-manipulation routines.
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-Initialization">Initialization</a></H3><PRE>
The library uses the locale which the calling program has
initialized. That is normally done with <STRONG>setlocale</STRONG>:
<STRONG>TERM</STRONG> has been exported. <STRONG>tset(1)</STRONG> is usually responsible
for doing this. [See <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG> for further details.]
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-Datatypes">Datatypes</a></H3><PRE>
The <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> library permits manipulation of data struc-
tures, called <EM>windows</EM>, which can be thought of as two-
dimensional arrays of characters representing all or part
characters, and input values use names, defined in
<STRONG><curses.h></STRONG>, such as <STRONG>A_REVERSE</STRONG>, <STRONG>ACS_HLINE</STRONG>, and <STRONG>KEY_LEFT</STRONG>.
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-Environment-variables">Environment variables</a></H3><PRE>
If the environment variables <STRONG>LINES</STRONG> and <STRONG>COLUMNS</STRONG> are set, or
if the program is executing in a window environment, line
and column information in the environment will override
clearing and redrawing a screen containing garbage. The
<STRONG>curscr</STRONG> can be used in only a few routines.
- <STRONG>Routine</STRONG> <STRONG>and</STRONG> <STRONG>Argument</STRONG> <STRONG>Names</STRONG>
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-Routine-and-Argument-Names">Routine and Argument Names</a></H3><PRE>
Many <STRONG>curses</STRONG> routines have two or more versions. The rou-
tines prefixed with <STRONG>w</STRONG> require a window argument. The rou-
tines prefixed with <STRONG>p</STRONG> require a pad argument. Those with-
any configuration of the library. There are two common
configurations of the library:
- ncurses
- the "normal" library, which handles 8-bit
- characters. The normal (8-bit) library stores
- characters combined with attributes in <STRONG>chtype</STRONG>
- data.
-
- Attributes alone (no corresponding character)
- may be stored in <STRONG>chtype</STRONG> or the equivalent
- <STRONG>attr_t</STRONG> data. In either case, the data is
- stored in something like an integer.
-
- Each cell (row and column) in a <STRONG>WINDOW</STRONG> is
- stored as a <STRONG>chtype</STRONG>.
-
- ncursesw
- the so-called "wide" library, which handles
- multibyte characters (see the section on
- <STRONG>ALTERNATE</STRONG> <STRONG>CONFIGURATIONS</STRONG>). The "wide" library
- includes all of the calls from the "normal"
- library. It adds about one third more calls
- using data types which store multibyte charac-
- ters:
-
- <STRONG>cchar_t</STRONG>
- corresponds to <STRONG>chtype</STRONG>. However it is a
- structure, because more data is stored
- than can fit into an integer. The char-
- acters are large enough to require a full
- integer value - and there may be more
- than one character per cell. The video
- attributes and color are stored in sepa-
- rate fields of the structure.
-
- Each cell (row and column) in a <STRONG>WINDOW</STRONG> is
- stored as a <STRONG>cchar_t</STRONG>.
-
- <STRONG>wchar_t</STRONG>
- stores a "wide" character. Like <STRONG>chtype</STRONG>,
- this may be an integer.
-
- <STRONG>wint_t</STRONG>
- stores a <STRONG>wchar_t</STRONG> or <STRONG>WEOF</STRONG> - not the same,
- though both may have the same size.
-
- The "wide" library provides new functions
- which are analogous to functions in the "nor-
- mal" library. There is a naming convention
- which relates many of the normal/wide vari-
- ants: a "_w" is inserted into the name. For
- example, <STRONG>waddch</STRONG> becomes <STRONG>wadd_wch</STRONG>.
-
- <STRONG>Routine</STRONG> <STRONG>Name</STRONG> <STRONG>Index</STRONG>
+ <EM>ncurses</EM>
+ the "normal" library, which handles 8-bit charac-
+ ters. The normal (8-bit) library stores charac-
+ ters combined with attributes in <STRONG>chtype</STRONG> data.
+
+ Attributes alone (no corresponding character) may
+ be stored in <STRONG>chtype</STRONG> or the equivalent <STRONG>attr_t</STRONG> data.
+ In either case, the data is stored in something
+ like an integer.
+
+ Each cell (row and column) in a <STRONG>WINDOW</STRONG> is stored
+ as a <STRONG>chtype</STRONG>.
+
+ <EM>ncursesw</EM>
+ the so-called "wide" library, which handles multi-
+ byte characters (see the section on <STRONG>ALTERNATE</STRONG> <STRONG>CON-</STRONG>
+ <STRONG>FIGURATIONS</STRONG>). The "wide" library includes all of
+ the calls from the "normal" library. It adds
+ about one third more calls using data types which
+ store multibyte characters:
+
+ <STRONG>cchar_t</STRONG>
+ corresponds to <STRONG>chtype</STRONG>. However it is a
+ structure, because more data is stored than
+ can fit into an integer. The characters are
+ large enough to require a full integer value
+ - and there may be more than one character
+ per cell. The video attributes and color are
+ stored in separate fields of the structure.
+
+ Each cell (row and column) in a <STRONG>WINDOW</STRONG> is
+ stored as a <STRONG>cchar_t</STRONG>.
+
+ <STRONG>wchar_t</STRONG>
+ stores a "wide" character. Like <STRONG>chtype</STRONG>, this
+ may be an integer.
+
+ <STRONG>wint_t</STRONG>
+ stores a <STRONG>wchar_t</STRONG> or <STRONG>WEOF</STRONG> - not the same,
+ though both may have the same size.
+
+ The "wide" library provides new functions which
+ are analogous to functions in the "normal"
+ library. There is a naming convention which
+ relates many of the normal/wide variants: a "_w"
+ is inserted into the name. For example, <STRONG>waddch</STRONG>
+ becomes <STRONG>wadd_wch</STRONG>.
+
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-Routine-Name-Index">Routine Name Index</a></H3><PRE>
The following table lists each <STRONG>curses</STRONG> routine and the name
- of the manual page on which it is described. Routines
- flagged with `*' are ncurses-specific, not described by
+ of the manual page on which it is described. Routines
+ flagged with `*' are ncurses-specific, not described by
XPG4 or present in SVr4.
<STRONG>curses</STRONG> Routine Name Manual Page Name
_nc_free_and_exit <STRONG><A HREF="curs_memleaks.3x.html">curs_memleaks(3x)</A></STRONG>*
_nc_freeall <STRONG><A HREF="curs_memleaks.3x.html">curs_memleaks(3x)</A></STRONG>*
_nc_tracebits <STRONG><A HREF="curs_trace.3x.html">curs_trace(3x)</A></STRONG>*
-
_traceattr <STRONG><A HREF="curs_trace.3x.html">curs_trace(3x)</A></STRONG>*
_traceattr2 <STRONG><A HREF="curs_trace.3x.html">curs_trace(3x)</A></STRONG>*
_tracechar <STRONG><A HREF="curs_trace.3x.html">curs_trace(3x)</A></STRONG>*
+
_tracechtype <STRONG><A HREF="curs_trace.3x.html">curs_trace(3x)</A></STRONG>*
_tracechtype2 <STRONG><A HREF="curs_trace.3x.html">curs_trace(3x)</A></STRONG>*
_tracedump <STRONG><A HREF="curs_trace.3x.html">curs_trace(3x)</A></STRONG>*
echochar <STRONG><A HREF="curs_addch.3x.html">curs_addch(3x)</A></STRONG>
endwin <STRONG><A HREF="curs_initscr.3x.html">curs_initscr(3x)</A></STRONG>
erase <STRONG><A HREF="curs_clear.3x.html">curs_clear(3x)</A></STRONG>
-
erasechar <STRONG><A HREF="curs_termattrs.3x.html">curs_termattrs(3x)</A></STRONG>
erasewchar <STRONG><A HREF="curs_termattrs.3x.html">curs_termattrs(3x)</A></STRONG>
filter <STRONG><A HREF="curs_util.3x.html">curs_util(3x)</A></STRONG>
flash <STRONG><A HREF="curs_beep.3x.html">curs_beep(3x)</A></STRONG>
+
flushinp <STRONG><A HREF="curs_util.3x.html">curs_util(3x)</A></STRONG>
get_wch <STRONG><A HREF="curs_get_wch.3x.html">curs_get_wch(3x)</A></STRONG>
get_wstr <STRONG><A HREF="curs_get_wstr.3x.html">curs_get_wstr(3x)</A></STRONG>
is_cleared <STRONG><A HREF="curs_opaque.3x.html">curs_opaque(3x)</A></STRONG>*
is_idcok <STRONG><A HREF="curs_opaque.3x.html">curs_opaque(3x)</A></STRONG>*
is_idlok <STRONG><A HREF="curs_opaque.3x.html">curs_opaque(3x)</A></STRONG>*
-
is_immedok <STRONG><A HREF="curs_opaque.3x.html">curs_opaque(3x)</A></STRONG>*
is_keypad <STRONG><A HREF="curs_opaque.3x.html">curs_opaque(3x)</A></STRONG>*
is_leaveok <STRONG><A HREF="curs_opaque.3x.html">curs_opaque(3x)</A></STRONG>*
is_linetouched <STRONG><A HREF="curs_touch.3x.html">curs_touch(3x)</A></STRONG>
is_nodelay <STRONG><A HREF="curs_opaque.3x.html">curs_opaque(3x)</A></STRONG>*
+
is_notimeout <STRONG><A HREF="curs_opaque.3x.html">curs_opaque(3x)</A></STRONG>*
+ is_pad <STRONG><A HREF="curs_opaque.3x.html">curs_opaque(3x)</A></STRONG>*
is_scrollok <STRONG><A HREF="curs_opaque.3x.html">curs_opaque(3x)</A></STRONG>*
+ is_subwin <STRONG><A HREF="curs_opaque.3x.html">curs_opaque(3x)</A></STRONG>*
is_syncok <STRONG><A HREF="curs_opaque.3x.html">curs_opaque(3x)</A></STRONG>*
is_term_resized <STRONG><A HREF="resizeterm.3x.html">resizeterm(3x)</A></STRONG>*
is_wintouched <STRONG><A HREF="curs_touch.3x.html">curs_touch(3x)</A></STRONG>
mvinsstr <STRONG><A HREF="curs_insstr.3x.html">curs_insstr(3x)</A></STRONG>
mvinstr <STRONG><A HREF="curs_instr.3x.html">curs_instr(3x)</A></STRONG>
mvinwstr <STRONG><A HREF="curs_inwstr.3x.html">curs_inwstr(3x)</A></STRONG>
-
mvprintw <STRONG><A HREF="curs_printw.3x.html">curs_printw(3x)</A></STRONG>
mvscanw <STRONG><A HREF="curs_scanw.3x.html">curs_scanw(3x)</A></STRONG>
mvvline <STRONG><A HREF="curs_border.3x.html">curs_border(3x)</A></STRONG>
mvvline_set <STRONG><A HREF="curs_border_set.3x.html">curs_border_set(3x)</A></STRONG>
+
mvwadd_wch <STRONG><A HREF="curs_add_wch.3x.html">curs_add_wch(3x)</A></STRONG>
mvwadd_wchnstr <STRONG><A HREF="curs_add_wchstr.3x.html">curs_add_wchstr(3x)</A></STRONG>
mvwadd_wchstr <STRONG><A HREF="curs_add_wchstr.3x.html">curs_add_wchstr(3x)</A></STRONG>
pnoutrefresh <STRONG><A HREF="curs_pad.3x.html">curs_pad(3x)</A></STRONG>
prefresh <STRONG><A HREF="curs_pad.3x.html">curs_pad(3x)</A></STRONG>
printw <STRONG><A HREF="curs_printw.3x.html">curs_printw(3x)</A></STRONG>
-
putp <STRONG><A HREF="curs_terminfo.3x.html">curs_terminfo(3x)</A></STRONG>
putwin <STRONG><A HREF="curs_util.3x.html">curs_util(3x)</A></STRONG>
qiflush <STRONG><A HREF="curs_inopts.3x.html">curs_inopts(3x)</A></STRONG>
raw <STRONG><A HREF="curs_inopts.3x.html">curs_inopts(3x)</A></STRONG>
redrawwin <STRONG><A HREF="curs_refresh.3x.html">curs_refresh(3x)</A></STRONG>
+
refresh <STRONG><A HREF="curs_refresh.3x.html">curs_refresh(3x)</A></STRONG>
reset_prog_mode <STRONG><A HREF="curs_kernel.3x.html">curs_kernel(3x)</A></STRONG>
reset_shell_mode <STRONG><A HREF="curs_kernel.3x.html">curs_kernel(3x)</A></STRONG>
resetty <STRONG><A HREF="curs_kernel.3x.html">curs_kernel(3x)</A></STRONG>
+ resize_term <STRONG><A HREF="resizeterm.3x.html">resizeterm(3x)</A></STRONG>*
resizeterm <STRONG><A HREF="resizeterm.3x.html">resizeterm(3x)</A></STRONG>*
restartterm <STRONG><A HREF="curs_terminfo.3x.html">curs_terminfo(3x)</A></STRONG>
ripoffline <STRONG><A HREF="curs_kernel.3x.html">curs_kernel(3x)</A></STRONG>
tigetflag <STRONG><A HREF="curs_terminfo.3x.html">curs_terminfo(3x)</A></STRONG>
tigetnum <STRONG><A HREF="curs_terminfo.3x.html">curs_terminfo(3x)</A></STRONG>
tigetstr <STRONG><A HREF="curs_terminfo.3x.html">curs_terminfo(3x)</A></STRONG>
+ tiparm <STRONG><A HREF="curs_terminfo.3x.html">curs_terminfo(3x)</A></STRONG>*
timeout <STRONG><A HREF="curs_inopts.3x.html">curs_inopts(3x)</A></STRONG>
touchline <STRONG><A HREF="curs_touch.3x.html">curs_touch(3x)</A></STRONG>
touchwin <STRONG><A HREF="curs_touch.3x.html">curs_touch(3x)</A></STRONG>
tparm <STRONG><A HREF="curs_terminfo.3x.html">curs_terminfo(3x)</A></STRONG>
-
tputs <STRONG><A HREF="curs_termcap.3x.html">curs_termcap(3x)</A></STRONG>
tputs <STRONG><A HREF="curs_terminfo.3x.html">curs_terminfo(3x)</A></STRONG>
trace <STRONG><A HREF="curs_trace.3x.html">curs_trace(3x)</A></STRONG>*
typeahead <STRONG><A HREF="curs_inopts.3x.html">curs_inopts(3x)</A></STRONG>
+
unctrl <STRONG><A HREF="curs_util.3x.html">curs_util(3x)</A></STRONG>
unget_wch <STRONG><A HREF="curs_get_wch.3x.html">curs_get_wch(3x)</A></STRONG>
ungetch <STRONG><A HREF="curs_getch.3x.html">curs_getch(3x)</A></STRONG>
use_env <STRONG><A HREF="curs_util.3x.html">curs_util(3x)</A></STRONG>
use_extended_names <STRONG><A HREF="curs_extend.3x.html">curs_extend(3x)</A></STRONG>*
use_legacy_coding <STRONG><A HREF="legacy_coding.3x.html">legacy_coding(3x)</A></STRONG>*
+ use_tioctl <STRONG><A HREF="curs_util.3x.html">curs_util(3x)</A></STRONG>
vid_attr <STRONG><A HREF="curs_terminfo.3x.html">curs_terminfo(3x)</A></STRONG>
vid_puts <STRONG><A HREF="curs_terminfo.3x.html">curs_terminfo(3x)</A></STRONG>
vidattr <STRONG><A HREF="curs_terminfo.3x.html">curs_terminfo(3x)</A></STRONG>
wget_wstr <STRONG><A HREF="curs_get_wstr.3x.html">curs_get_wstr(3x)</A></STRONG>
wgetbkgrnd <STRONG><A HREF="curs_bkgrnd.3x.html">curs_bkgrnd(3x)</A></STRONG>
wgetch <STRONG><A HREF="curs_getch.3x.html">curs_getch(3x)</A></STRONG>
+ wgetdelay <STRONG><A HREF="curs_opaque.3x.html">curs_opaque(3x)</A></STRONG>*
wgetn_wstr <STRONG><A HREF="curs_get_wstr.3x.html">curs_get_wstr(3x)</A></STRONG>
wgetnstr <STRONG><A HREF="curs_getstr.3x.html">curs_getstr(3x)</A></STRONG>
+ wgetparent <STRONG><A HREF="curs_opaque.3x.html">curs_opaque(3x)</A></STRONG>*
+ wgetscrreg <STRONG><A HREF="curs_opaque.3x.html">curs_opaque(3x)</A></STRONG>*
wgetstr <STRONG><A HREF="curs_getstr.3x.html">curs_getstr(3x)</A></STRONG>
-
whline <STRONG><A HREF="curs_border.3x.html">curs_border(3x)</A></STRONG>
+
whline_set <STRONG><A HREF="curs_border_set.3x.html">curs_border_set(3x)</A></STRONG>
win_wch <STRONG><A HREF="curs_in_wch.3x.html">curs_in_wch(3x)</A></STRONG>
win_wchnstr <STRONG><A HREF="curs_in_wchstr.3x.html">curs_in_wchstr(3x)</A></STRONG>
wvline_set <STRONG><A HREF="curs_border_set.3x.html">curs_border_set(3x)</A></STRONG>
-</PRE>
-<H2>RETURN VALUE</H2><PRE>
- Routines that return an integer return <STRONG>ERR</STRONG> upon failure
- and an integer value other than <STRONG>ERR</STRONG> upon successful com-
- pletion, unless otherwise noted in the routine descrip-
+</PRE><H2><a name="h2-RETURN-VALUE">RETURN VALUE</a></H2><PRE>
+ Routines that return an integer return <STRONG>ERR</STRONG> upon failure
+ and an integer value other than <STRONG>ERR</STRONG> upon successful com-
+ pletion, unless otherwise noted in the routine descrip-
tions.
+ As a general rule, routines check for null pointers passed
+ as parameters, and handle this as an error.
+
All macros return the value of the <STRONG>w</STRONG> version, except
<STRONG>setscrreg</STRONG>, <STRONG>wsetscrreg</STRONG>, <STRONG>getyx</STRONG>, <STRONG>getbegyx</STRONG>, and <STRONG>getmaxyx</STRONG>. The
return values of <STRONG>setscrreg</STRONG>, <STRONG>wsetscrreg</STRONG>, <STRONG>getyx</STRONG>, <STRONG>getbegyx</STRONG>,
Routines that return pointers return <STRONG>NULL</STRONG> on error.
-</PRE>
-<H2>ENVIRONMENT</H2><PRE>
+</PRE><H2><a name="h2-ENVIRONMENT">ENVIRONMENT</a></H2><PRE>
The following environment symbols are useful for customiz-
ing the runtime behavior of the <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> library. The most
important ones have been already discussed in detail.
- BAUDRATE
- The debugging library checks this environment symbol
- when the application has redirected output to a file.
- The symbol's numeric value is used for the baudrate.
- If no value is found, <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> uses 9600. This allows
- testers to construct repeatable test-cases that take
- into account costs that depend on baudrate.
-
- CC When set, change occurrences of the command_character
- (i.e., the <STRONG>cmdch</STRONG> capability) of the loaded terminfo
- entries to the value of this symbol. Very few ter-
- minfo entries provide this feature.
-
- Because this name is also used in development envi-
- ronments to represent the C compiler's name, <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG>
- ignores it if it does not happen to be a single char-
- acter.
-
- COLUMNS
- Specify the width of the screen in characters.
- Applications running in a windowing environment usu-
- ally are able to obtain the width of the window in
- which they are executing. If neither the <STRONG>COLUMNS</STRONG>
- value nor the terminal's screen size is available,
- <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> uses the size which may be specified in the
- terminfo database (i.e., the <STRONG>cols</STRONG> capability).
-
- It is important that your application use a correct
- size for the screen. This is not always possible
- because your application may be running on a host
- which does not honor NAWS (Negotiations About Window
- Size), or because you are temporarily running as
- another user. However, setting <STRONG>COLUMNS</STRONG> and/or <STRONG>LINES</STRONG>
- overrides the library's use of the screen size
- obtained from the operating system.
-
- Either <STRONG>COLUMNS</STRONG> or <STRONG>LINES</STRONG> symbols may be specified
- independently. This is mainly useful to circumvent
- legacy misfeatures of terminal descriptions, e.g.,
- xterm which commonly specifies a 65 line screen. For
- best results, <STRONG>lines</STRONG> and <STRONG>cols</STRONG> should not be specified
- in a terminal description for terminals which are run
- as emulations.
-
- Use the <STRONG>use_env</STRONG> function to disable all use of exter-
- nal environment (including system calls) to determine
- the screen size.
-
- ESCDELAY
- Specifies the total time, in milliseconds, for which
- ncurses will await a character sequence, e.g., a
- function key. The default value, 1000 milliseconds,
- is enough for most uses. However, it is made a vari-
- able to accommodate unusual applications.
-
- The most common instance where you may wish to change
- this value is to work with slow hosts, e.g., running
- on a network. If the host cannot read characters
- rapidly enough, it will have the same effect as if
- the terminal did not send characters rapidly enough.
- The library will still see a timeout.
-
- Note that xterm mouse events are built up from char-
- acter sequences received from the xterm. If your
- application makes heavy use of multiple-clicking, you
- may wish to lengthen this default value because the
- timeout applies to the composed multi-click event as
- well as the individual clicks.
-
- In addition to the environment variable, this imple-
- mentation provides a global variable with the same
- name. Portable applications should not rely upon the
- presence of ESCDELAY in either form, but setting the
- environment variable rather than the global variable
- does not create problems when compiling an applica-
- tion.
-
- HOME Tells <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> where your home directory is. That is
- where it may read and write auxiliary terminal
- descriptions:
-
- $HOME/.termcap
- $HOME/.terminfo
-
- LINES
- Like COLUMNS, specify the height of the screen in
- characters. See COLUMNS for a detailed description.
-
- MOUSE_BUTTONS_123
- This applies only to the OS/2 EMX port. It specifies
- the order of buttons on the mouse. OS/2 numbers a
- 3-button mouse inconsistently from other platforms:
-
- 1 = left
- 2 = right
- 3 = middle.
-
- This symbol lets you customize the mouse. The symbol
- must be three numeric digits 1-3 in any order, e.g.,
- 123 or 321. If it is not specified, <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> uses
- 132.
-
- NCURSES_ASSUMED_COLORS
- Override the compiled-in assumption that the termi-
- nal's default colors are white-on-black (see
- <STRONG><A HREF="default_colors.3x.html">default_colors(3x)</A></STRONG>). You may set the foreground and
- background color values with this environment vari-
- able by proving a 2-element list: foreground,back-
- ground. For example, to tell ncurses to not assume
- anything about the colors, set this to "-1,-1". To
- make it green-on-black, set it to "2,0". Any posi-
- tive value from zero to the terminfo <STRONG>max_colors</STRONG> value
- is allowed.
-
- NCURSES_GPM_TERMS
- This applies only to ncurses configured to use the
- GPM interface.
-
- If present, the environment variable is a list of one
- or more terminal names against which the TERM envi-
- ronment variable is matched. Setting it to an empty
- value disables the GPM interface; using the built-in
- support for xterm, etc.
-
- If the environment variable is absent, ncurses will
- attempt to open GPM if TERM contains "linux".
-
- NCURSES_NO_HARD_TABS
- <STRONG>Ncurses</STRONG> may use tabs as part of the cursor movement
- optimization. In some cases, your terminal driver
- may not handle these properly. Set this environment
- variable to disable the feature. You can also adjust
- your <STRONG>stty</STRONG> settings to avoid the problem.
-
- NCURSES_NO_MAGIC_COOKIES
- Some terminals use a magic-cookie feature which
- requires special handling to make highlighting and
- other video attributes display properly. You can
- suppress the highlighting entirely for these termi-
- nals by setting this environment variable.
-
- NCURSES_NO_PADDING
- Most of the terminal descriptions in the terminfo
- database are written for real "hardware" terminals.
- Many people use terminal emulators which run in a
- windowing environment and use curses-based applica-
- tions. Terminal emulators can duplicate all of the
- important aspects of a hardware terminal, but they do
- not have the same limitations. The chief limitation
- of a hardware terminal from the standpoint of your
- application is the management of dataflow, i.e., tim-
- ing. Unless a hardware terminal is interfaced into a
- terminal concentrator (which does flow control), it
- (or your application) must manage dataflow, prevent-
- ing overruns. The cheapest solution (no hardware
- cost) is for your program to do this by pausing after
- operations that the terminal does slowly, such as
- clearing the display.
-
- As a result, many terminal descriptions (including
- the vt100) have delay times embedded. You may wish
- to use these descriptions, but not want to pay the
- performance penalty.
-
- Set the NCURSES_NO_PADDING symbol to disable all but
- mandatory padding. Mandatory padding is used as a
- part of special control sequences such as <EM>flash</EM>.
-
- NCURSES_NO_SETBUF
- Normally <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> enables buffered output during ter-
- minal initialization. This is done (as in SVr4
- curses) for performance reasons. For testing pur-
- poses, both of <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> and certain applications, this
- feature is made optional. Setting the
- NCURSES_NO_SETBUF variable disables output buffering,
- leaving the output in the original (usually line
- buffered) mode.
-
- NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS
- During initialization, the <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> library checks for
- special cases where VT100 line-drawing (and the cor-
- responding alternate character set capabilities)
- described in the terminfo are known to be missing.
- Specifically, when running in a UTF-8 locale, the
- Linux console emulator and the GNU screen program
- ignore these. Ncurses checks the TERM environment
- variable for these. For other special cases, you
- should set this environment variable. Doing this
- tells ncurses to use Unicode values which correspond
- to the VT100 line-drawing glyphs. That works for the
- special cases cited, and is likely to work for termi-
- nal emulators.
-
- When setting this variable, you should set it to a
- nonzero value. Setting it to zero (or to a nonnum-
- ber) disables the special check for "linux" and
- "screen".
-
- NCURSES_TRACE
- During initialization, the <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> debugging library
- checks the NCURSES_TRACE symbol. If it is defined,
- to a numeric value, <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> calls the <STRONG>trace</STRONG> function,
- using that value as the argument.
-
- The argument values, which are defined in <STRONG>curses.h</STRONG>,
- provide several types of information. When running
- with traces enabled, your application will write the
- file <STRONG>trace</STRONG> to the current directory.
-
- TERM Denotes your terminal type. Each terminal type is
- distinct, though many are similar.
-
- TERMCAP
- If the <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> library has been configured with <EM>term-</EM>
- <EM>cap</EM> support, <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> will check for a terminal's
- description in termcap form if it is not available in
- the terminfo database.
-
- The TERMCAP symbol contains either a terminal
- description (with newlines stripped out), or a file
- name telling where the information denoted by the
- TERM symbol exists. In either case, setting it
- directs <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> to ignore the usual place for this
- information, e.g., /etc/termcap.
-
- TERMINFO
- Overrides the directory in which <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> searches for
- your terminal description. This is the simplest, but
- not the only way to change the list of directories.
- The complete list of directories in order follows:
-
- <STRONG>o</STRONG> the last directory to which <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> wrote, if
- any, is searched first
-
- <STRONG>o</STRONG> the directory specified by the TERMINFO symbol
-
- <STRONG>o</STRONG> $HOME/.terminfo
-
- <STRONG>o</STRONG> directories listed in the TERMINFO_DIRS symbol
-
- <STRONG>o</STRONG> one or more directories whose names are config-
- ured and compiled into the ncurses library, e.g.,
- /usr/share/terminfo
-
- TERMINFO_DIRS
- Specifies a list of directories to search for termi-
- nal descriptions. The list is separated by colons
- (i.e., ":") on Unix, semicolons on OS/2 EMX. All of
- the terminal descriptions are in terminfo form, which
- makes a subdirectory named for the first letter of
- the terminal names therein.
-
- TERMPATH
- If TERMCAP does not hold a file name then <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG>
- checks the TERMPATH symbol. This is a list of file-
- names separated by spaces or colons (i.e., ":") on
- Unix, semicolons on OS/2 EMX. If the TERMPATH symbol
- is not set, <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> looks in the files /etc/termcap,
- /usr/share/misc/termcap and $HOME/.termcap, in that
- order.
+ <STRONG>CC</STRONG>
+ When set, change occurrences of the command_character
+ (i.e., the <STRONG>cmdch</STRONG> capability) of the loaded terminfo
+ entries to the value of this variable. Very few terminfo
+ entries provide this feature.
+
+ Because this name is also used in development environments
+ to represent the C compiler's name, <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> ignores it if
+ it does not happen to be a single character.
+
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-BAUDRATE">BAUDRATE</a></H3><PRE>
+ The debugging library checks this environment variable
+ when the application has redirected output to a file. The
+ variable's numeric value is used for the baudrate. If no
+ value is found, <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> uses 9600. This allows testers to
+ construct repeatable test-cases that take into account
+ costs that depend on baudrate.
+
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-COLUMNS">COLUMNS</a></H3><PRE>
+ Specify the width of the screen in characters. Applica-
+ tions running in a windowing environment usually are able
+ to obtain the width of the window in which they are exe-
+ cuting. If neither the <STRONG>COLUMNS</STRONG> value nor the terminal's
+ screen size is available, <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> uses the size which may
+ be specified in the terminfo database (i.e., the <STRONG>cols</STRONG>
+ capability).
+
+ It is important that your application use a correct size
+ for the screen. This is not always possible because your
+ application may be running on a host which does not honor
+ NAWS (Negotiations About Window Size), or because you are
+ temporarily running as another user. However, setting
+ <STRONG>COLUMNS</STRONG> and/or <STRONG>LINES</STRONG> overrides the library's use of the
+ screen size obtained from the operating system.
+
+ Either <STRONG>COLUMNS</STRONG> or <STRONG>LINES</STRONG> symbols may be specified indepen-
+ dently. This is mainly useful to circumvent legacy mis-
+ features of terminal descriptions, e.g., xterm which com-
+ monly specifies a 65 line screen. For best results, <STRONG>lines</STRONG>
+ and <STRONG>cols</STRONG> should not be specified in a terminal description
+ for terminals which are run as emulations.
+
+ Use the <STRONG>use_env</STRONG> function to disable all use of external
+ environment (but not including system calls) to determine
+ the screen size. Use the <STRONG>use_tioctl</STRONG> function to update
+ <STRONG>COLUMNS</STRONG> or <STRONG>LINES</STRONG> to match the screen size obtained from
+ system calls or the terminal database.
+
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-ESCDELAY">ESCDELAY</a></H3><PRE>
+ Specifies the total time, in milliseconds, for which
+ ncurses will await a character sequence, e.g., a function
+ key. The default value, 1000 milliseconds, is enough for
+ most uses. However, it is made a variable to accommodate
+ unusual applications.
+
+ The most common instance where you may wish to change this
+ value is to work with slow hosts, e.g., running on a net-
+ work. If the host cannot read characters rapidly enough,
+ it will have the same effect as if the terminal did not
+ send characters rapidly enough. The library will still
+ see a timeout.
+
+ Note that xterm mouse events are built up from character
+ sequences received from the xterm. If your application
+ makes heavy use of multiple-clicking, you may wish to
+ lengthen this default value because the timeout applies to
+ the composed multi-click event as well as the individual
+ clicks.
+
+ In addition to the environment variable, this implementa-
+ tion provides a global variable with the same name. Por-
+ table applications should not rely upon the presence of
+ ESCDELAY in either form, but setting the environment vari-
+ able rather than the global variable does not create prob-
+ lems when compiling an application.
+
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-HOME">HOME</a></H3><PRE>
+ Tells <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> where your home directory is. That is where
+ it may read and write auxiliary terminal descriptions:
+
+ $HOME/.termcap
+ $HOME/.terminfo
+
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-LINES">LINES</a></H3><PRE>
+ Like COLUMNS, specify the height of the screen in charac-
+ ters. See COLUMNS for a detailed description.
+
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-MOUSE_BUTTONS_123">MOUSE_BUTTONS_123</a></H3><PRE>
+ This applies only to the OS/2 EMX port. It specifies the
+ order of buttons on the mouse. OS/2 numbers a 3-button
+ mouse inconsistently from other platforms:
+
+ 1 = left
+ 2 = right
+ 3 = middle.
+
+ This variable lets you customize the mouse. The variable
+ must be three numeric digits 1-3 in any order, e.g., 123
+ or 321. If it is not specified, <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> uses 132.
+
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-NCURSES_ASSUMED_COLORS">NCURSES_ASSUMED_COLORS</a></H3><PRE>
+ Override the compiled-in assumption that the terminal's
+ default colors are white-on-black (see <STRONG>default_col-</STRONG>
+ <STRONG><A HREF="default_colors.3x.html">ors(3x)</A></STRONG>). You may set the foreground and background color
+ values with this environment variable by proving a 2-ele-
+ ment list: foreground,background. For example, to tell
+ ncurses to not assume anything about the colors, set this
+ to "-1,-1". To make it green-on-black, set it to "2,0".
+ Any positive value from zero to the terminfo <STRONG>max_colors</STRONG>
+ value is allowed.
+
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-NCURSES_CONSOLE2">NCURSES_CONSOLE2</a></H3><PRE>
+ This applies only to the MinGW port of ncurses.
+
+ The <STRONG>Console2</STRONG> program's handling of the Microsoft Console
+ API call <STRONG>CreateConsoleScreenBuffer</STRONG> is defective. Applica-
+ tions which use this will hang. However, it is possible
+ to simulate the action of this call by mapping coordi-
+ nates, explicitly saving and restoring the original screen
+ contents. Setting the environment variable <STRONG>NCGDB</STRONG> has the
+ same effect.
+
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-NCURSES_GPM_TERMS">NCURSES_GPM_TERMS</a></H3><PRE>
+ This applies only to ncurses configured to use the GPM
+ interface.
+
+ If present, the environment variable is a list of one or
+ more terminal names against which the TERM environment
+ variable is matched. Setting it to an empty value dis-
+ ables the GPM interface; using the built-in support for
+ xterm, etc.
+
+ If the environment variable is absent, ncurses will
+ attempt to open GPM if TERM contains "linux".
+
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-NCURSES_NO_HARD_TABS">NCURSES_NO_HARD_TABS</a></H3><PRE>
+ <STRONG>Ncurses</STRONG> may use tabs as part of the cursor movement opti-
+ mization. In some cases, your terminal driver may not
+ handle these properly. Set this environment variable to
+ disable the feature. You can also adjust your <STRONG>stty</STRONG> set-
+ tings to avoid the problem. NCURSES_NO_MAGIC_COOKIE Some
+ terminals use a magic-cookie feature which requires spe-
+ cial handling to make highlighting and other video
+ attributes display properly. You can suppress the high-
+ lighting entirely for these terminals by setting this
+ environment variable.
+
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-NCURSES_NO_PADDING">NCURSES_NO_PADDING</a></H3><PRE>
+ Most of the terminal descriptions in the terminfo database
+ are written for real "hardware" terminals. Many people
+ use terminal emulators which run in a windowing environ-
+ ment and use curses-based applications. Terminal emula-
+ tors can duplicate all of the important aspects of a hard-
+ ware terminal, but they do not have the same limitations.
+ The chief limitation of a hardware terminal from the
+ standpoint of your application is the management of
+ dataflow, i.e., timing. Unless a hardware terminal is
+ interfaced into a terminal concentrator (which does flow
+ control), it (or your application) must manage dataflow,
+ preventing overruns. The cheapest solution (no hardware
+ cost) is for your program to do this by pausing after
+ operations that the terminal does slowly, such as clearing
+ the display.
+
+ As a result, many terminal descriptions (including the
+ vt100) have delay times embedded. You may wish to use
+ these descriptions, but not want to pay the performance
+ penalty.
+
+ Set the NCURSES_NO_PADDING environment variable to disable
+ all but mandatory padding. Mandatory padding is used as a
+ part of special control sequences such as <EM>flash</EM>.
+
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-NCURSES_NO_SETBUF">NCURSES_NO_SETBUF</a></H3><PRE>
+ This setting is obsolete. Before changes
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> started with 5.9 patch 20120825 and
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> continued though 5.9 patch 20130126
+
+ <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> enabled buffered output during terminal initial-
+ ization. This was done (as in SVr4 curses) for perfor-
+ mance reasons. For testing purposes, both of <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> and
+ certain applications, this feature was made optional.
+ Setting the NCURSES_NO_SETBUF variable disabled output
+ buffering, leaving the output in the original (usually
+ line buffered) mode.
+
+ In the current implementation, ncurses performs its own
+ buffering and does not require this workaround. It does
+ not modify the buffering of the standard output.
+
+ The reason for the change was to make the behavior for
+ interrupts and other signals more robust. One drawback is
+ that certain nonconventional programs would mix ordinary
+ stdio calls with ncurses calls and (usually) work. This
+ is no longer possible since ncurses is not using the
+ buffered standard output but its own output (to the same
+ file descriptor). As a special case, the low-level calls
+ such as <STRONG>putp</STRONG> still use the standard output. But high-
+ level curses calls do not.
+
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS">NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS</a></H3><PRE>
+ During initialization, the <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> library checks for spe-
+ cial cases where VT100 line-drawing (and the corresponding
+ alternate character set capabilities) described in the
+ terminfo are known to be missing. Specifically, when run-
+ ning in a UTF-8 locale, the Linux console emulator and the
+ GNU screen program ignore these. Ncurses checks the TERM
+ environment variable for these. For other special cases,
+ you should set this environment variable. Doing this
+ tells ncurses to use Unicode values which correspond to
+ the VT100 line-drawing glyphs. That works for the special
+ cases cited, and is likely to work for terminal emulators.
+
+ When setting this variable, you should set it to a nonzero
+ value. Setting it to zero (or to a nonnumber) disables
+ the special check for "linux" and "screen".
+
+ As an alternative to the environment variable, ncurses
+ checks for an extended terminfo capability <STRONG>U8</STRONG>. This is a
+ numeric capability which can be compiled using <STRONG>tic</STRONG> <STRONG>-x</STRONG>.
+ For example
+
+ # linux console, if patched to provide working
+ # VT100 shift-in/shift-out, with corresponding font.
+ linux-vt100|linux console with VT100 line-graphics,
+ U8#0, use=linux,
+
+ # uxterm with vt100Graphics resource set to false
+ xterm-utf8|xterm relying on UTF-8 line-graphics,
+ U8#1, use=xterm,
+
+ The name "U8" is chosen to be two characters, to permit it
+ to be used by applications that use ncurses' termcap
+ interface.
+
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-NCURSES_TRACE">NCURSES_TRACE</a></H3><PRE>
+ During initialization, the <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> debugging library
+ checks the NCURSES_TRACE environment variable. If it is
+ defined, to a numeric value, <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> calls the <STRONG>trace</STRONG> func-
+ tion, using that value as the argument.
+
+ The argument values, which are defined in <STRONG>curses.h</STRONG>, pro-
+ vide several types of information. When running with
+ traces enabled, your application will write the file <STRONG>trace</STRONG>
+ to the current directory.
+
+ See <STRONG><A HREF="curs_trace.3x.html">curs_trace(3x)</A></STRONG> for more information.
+
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-TERM">TERM</a></H3><PRE>
+ Denotes your terminal type. Each terminal type is dis-
+ tinct, though many are similar.
+
+ <STRONG>TERM</STRONG> is commonly set by terminal emulators to help appli-
+ cations find a workable terminal description. Some of
+ those choose a popular approximation, e.g., "ansi",
+ "vt100", "xterm" rather than an exact fit. Not infre-
+ quently, your application will have problems with that
+ approach, e.g., incorrect function-key definitions.
+
+ If you set <STRONG>TERM</STRONG> in your environment, it has no effect on
+ the operation of the terminal emulator. It only affects
+ the way applications work within the terminal. Likewise,
+ as a general rule (<STRONG>xterm</STRONG> being a rare exception), terminal
+ emulators which allow you to specify <STRONG>TERM</STRONG> as a parameter
+ or configuration value do not change their behavior to
+ match that setting.
+
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-TERMCAP">TERMCAP</a></H3><PRE>
+ If the <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> library has been configured with <EM>termcap</EM>
+ support, <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> will check for a terminal's description
+ in termcap form if it is not available in the terminfo
+ database.
+
+ The TERMCAP environment variable contains either a termi-
+ nal description (with newlines stripped out), or a file
+ name telling where the information denoted by the TERM
+ environment variable exists. In either case, setting it
+ directs <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> to ignore the usual place for this infor-
+ mation, e.g., /etc/termcap.
+
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-TERMINFO">TERMINFO</a></H3><PRE>
+ Overrides the directory in which <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> searches for your
+ terminal description. This is the simplest, but not the
+ only way to change the list of directories. The complete
+ list of directories in order follows:
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> the last directory to which <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> wrote, if any,
+ is searched first
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> the directory specified by the TERMINFO environment
+ variable
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> $HOME/.terminfo
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> directories listed in the TERMINFO_DIRS environment
+ variable
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> one or more directories whose names are configured
+ and compiled into the ncurses library, i.e.,
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> /usr/local/ncurses/share/ter-
+ minfo:/usr/share/terminfo (corresponding to the
+ TERMINFO_DIRS variable)
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> /usr/share/terminfo (corresponding to the TER-
+ MINFO variable)
+
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-TERMINFO_DIRS">TERMINFO_DIRS</a></H3><PRE>
+ Specifies a list of directories to search for terminal
+ descriptions. The list is separated by colons (i.e., ":")
+ on Unix, semicolons on OS/2 EMX.
+
+ All of the terminal descriptions are in terminfo form.
+ Normally these are stored in a directory tree, using sub-
+ directories named by the first letter of the terminal
+ names therein.
+
+ If <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> is built with a hashed database, then each
+ entry in this list can also be the path of the correspond-
+ ing database file.
+
+ If <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> is built with a support for reading termcap
+ files directly, then an entry in this list may be the path
+ of a termcap file.
+
+
+</PRE><H3><a name="h3-TERMPATH">TERMPATH</a></H3><PRE>
+ If TERMCAP does not hold a file name then <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> checks
+ the TERMPATH environment variable. This is a list of
+ filenames separated by spaces or colons (i.e., ":") on
+ Unix, semicolons on OS/2 EMX.
+
+ If the TERMPATH environment variable is not set, <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG>
+ looks in the files /etc/termcap, /usr/share/misc/termcap
+ and $HOME/.termcap, in that order.
The library may be configured to disregard the following
variables when the current user is the superuser (root),
- or if the application uses setuid or setgid permissions:
+ or if the application uses setuid or setgid permissions:
+
$TERMINFO, $TERMINFO_DIRS, $TERMPATH, as well as $HOME.
-</PRE>
-<H2>ALTERNATE CONFIGURATIONS</H2><PRE>
- Several different configurations are possible, depending
- on the configure script options used when building
- <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG>. There are a few main options whose effects are
+</PRE><H2><a name="h2-ALTERNATE-CONFIGURATIONS">ALTERNATE CONFIGURATIONS</a></H2><PRE>
+ Several different configurations are possible, depending
+ on the configure script options used when building
+ <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG>. There are a few main options whose effects are
visible to the applications developer using <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG>:
--disable-overwrite
- The standard include for <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> is as noted in <STRONG>SYN-</STRONG>
+ The standard include for <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> is as noted in <STRONG>SYN-</STRONG>
<STRONG>OPSIS</STRONG>:
- <STRONG>#include</STRONG> <STRONG><curses.h></STRONG>
+ <STRONG>#include</STRONG> <STRONG><curses.h></STRONG>
- This option is used to avoid filename conflicts when
- <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> is not the main implementation of curses of
- the computer. If <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> is installed disabling
- overwrite, it puts its headers in a subdirectory,
+ This option is used to avoid filename conflicts when
+ <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> is not the main implementation of curses of
+ the computer. If <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> is installed disabling
+ overwrite, it puts its headers in a subdirectory,
e.g.,
- <STRONG>#include</STRONG> <STRONG><ncurses/curses.h></STRONG>
+ <STRONG>#include</STRONG> <STRONG><ncurses/curses.h></STRONG>
- It also omits a symbolic link which would allow you
+ It also omits a symbolic link which would allow you
to use <STRONG>-lcurses</STRONG> to build executables.
--enable-widec
- The configure script renames the library and (if the
- <STRONG>--disable-overwrite</STRONG> option is used) puts the header
+ The configure script renames the library and (if the
+ <STRONG>--disable-overwrite</STRONG> option is used) puts the header
files in a different subdirectory. All of the
- library names have a "w" appended to them, i.e.,
+ library names have a "w" appended to them, i.e.,
instead of
- <STRONG>-lncurses</STRONG>
+ <STRONG>-lncurses</STRONG>
you link with
- <STRONG>-lncursesw</STRONG>
+ <STRONG>-lncursesw</STRONG>
You must also define <STRONG>_XOPEN_SOURCE_EXTENDED</STRONG> when com-
- piling for the wide-character library to use the
- extended (wide-character) functions. The <STRONG>curses.h</STRONG>
- file which is installed for the wide-character
- library is designed to be compatible with the normal
+ piling for the wide-character library to use the
+ extended (wide-character) functions. The <STRONG>curses.h</STRONG>
+ file which is installed for the wide-character
+ library is designed to be compatible with the normal
library's header. Only the size of the <STRONG>WINDOW</STRONG> struc-
- ture differs, and very few applications require more
- than a pointer to <STRONG>WINDOW</STRONG>s. If the headers are
- installed allowing overwrite, the wide-character
- library's headers should be installed last, to allow
- applications to be built using either library from
+ ture differs, and very few applications require more
+ than a pointer to <STRONG>WINDOW</STRONG>s. If the headers are
+ installed allowing overwrite, the wide-character
+ library's headers should be installed last, to allow
+ applications to be built using either library from
the same set of headers.
+ --with-pthread
+ The configure script renames the library. All of the
+ library names have a "t" appended to them (before any
+ "w" added by <STRONG>--enable-widec</STRONG>).
+
+ The global variables such as <STRONG>LINES</STRONG> are replaced by
+ macros to allow read-only access. At the same time,
+ setter-functions are provided to set these values.
+ Some applications (very few) may require changes to
+ work with this convention.
+
--with-shared
--with-normal
--with-debug
--with-profile
- The shared and normal (static) library names differ
- by their suffixes, e.g., <STRONG>libncurses.so</STRONG> and <STRONG>libn-</STRONG>
- <STRONG>curses.a</STRONG>. The debug and profiling libraries add a
+ The shared and normal (static) library names differ
+ by their suffixes, e.g., <STRONG>libncurses.so</STRONG> and <STRONG>libn-</STRONG>
+ <STRONG>curses.a</STRONG>. The debug and profiling libraries add a
"_g" and a "_p" to the root names respectively, e.g.,
<STRONG>libncurses_g.a</STRONG> and <STRONG>libncurses_p.a</STRONG>.
--with-trace
- The <STRONG>trace</STRONG> function normally resides in the debug
+ The <STRONG>trace</STRONG> function normally resides in the debug
library, but it is sometimes useful to configure this
- in the shared library. Configure scripts should
+ in the shared library. Configure scripts should
check for the function's existence rather than assum-
ing it is always in the debug library.
-</PRE>
-<H2>FILES</H2><PRE>
+</PRE><H2><a name="h2-FILES">FILES</a></H2><PRE>
/usr/share/tabset
- directory containing initialization files for the
+ directory containing initialization files for the
terminal capability database /usr/share/terminfo ter-
minal capability database
-</PRE>
-<H2>SEE ALSO</H2><PRE>
- <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG> and related pages whose names begin "curs_"
+</PRE><H2><a name="h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></H2><PRE>
+ <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG> and related pages whose names begin "curs_"
for detailed routine descriptions.
+ <STRONG><A HREF="curs_variables.3x.html">curs_variables(3x)</A></STRONG>
-</PRE>
-<H2>EXTENSIONS</H2><PRE>
+</PRE><H2><a name="h2-EXTENSIONS">EXTENSIONS</a></H2><PRE>
The <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> library can be compiled with an option
(<STRONG>-DUSE_GETCAP</STRONG>) that falls back to the old-style /etc/term-
cap file if the terminal setup code cannot find a terminfo
- entry corresponding to <STRONG>TERM</STRONG>. Use of this feature is not
- recommended, as it essentially includes an entire termcap
- compiler in the <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> startup code, at significant cost
+ entry corresponding to <STRONG>TERM</STRONG>. Use of this feature is not
+ recommended, as it essentially includes an entire termcap
+ compiler in the <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> startup code, at significant cost
in core and startup cycles.
- The <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> library includes facilities for capturing
- mouse events on certain terminals (including xterm). See
+ The <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> library includes facilities for capturing
+ mouse events on certain terminals (including xterm). See
the <STRONG><A HREF="curs_mouse.3x.html">curs_mouse(3x)</A></STRONG> manual page for details.
- The <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> library includes facilities for responding to
- window resizing events, e.g., when running in an xterm.
- See the <STRONG><A HREF="resizeterm.3x.html">resizeterm(3x)</A></STRONG> and <STRONG><A HREF="wresize.3x.html">wresize(3x)</A></STRONG> manual pages for
- details. In addition, the library may be configured with
+ The <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> library includes facilities for responding to
+ window resizing events, e.g., when running in an xterm.
+ See the <STRONG><A HREF="resizeterm.3x.html">resizeterm(3x)</A></STRONG> and <STRONG><A HREF="wresize.3x.html">wresize(3x)</A></STRONG> manual pages for
+ details. In addition, the library may be configured with
a SIGWINCH handler.
- The <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> library extends the fixed set of function key
- capabilities of terminals by allowing the application
- designer to define additional key sequences at runtime.
+ The <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> library extends the fixed set of function key
+ capabilities of terminals by allowing the application
+ designer to define additional key sequences at runtime.
See the <STRONG><A HREF="define_key.3x.html">define_key(3x)</A></STRONG> <STRONG><A HREF="key_defined.3x.html">key_defined(3x)</A></STRONG>, and <STRONG><A HREF="keyok.3x.html">keyok(3x)</A></STRONG> man-
ual pages for details.
The <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> library can exploit the capabilities of termi-
- nals which implement the ISO-6429 SGR 39 and SGR 49 con-
+ nals which implement the ISO-6429 SGR 39 and SGR 49 con-
trols, which allow an application to reset the terminal to
- its original foreground and background colors. From the
- users' perspective, the application is able to draw col-
- ored text on a background whose color is set indepen-
- dently, providing better control over color contrasts.
+ its original foreground and background colors. From the
+ users' perspective, the application is able to draw col-
+ ored text on a background whose color is set indepen-
+ dently, providing better control over color contrasts.
See the <STRONG><A HREF="default_colors.3x.html">default_colors(3x)</A></STRONG> manual page for details.
- The <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> library includes a function for directing
- application output to a printer attached to the terminal
+ The <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> library includes a function for directing
+ application output to a printer attached to the terminal
device. See the <STRONG><A HREF="curs_print.3x.html">curs_print(3x)</A></STRONG> manual page for details.
-</PRE>
-<H2>PORTABILITY</H2><PRE>
- The <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> library is intended to be BASE-level confor-
+</PRE><H2><a name="h2-PORTABILITY">PORTABILITY</a></H2><PRE>
+ The <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> library is intended to be BASE-level confor-
mant with XSI Curses. The EXTENDED XSI Curses functional-
ity (including color support) is supported.
- A small number of local differences (that is, individual
- differences between the XSI Curses and <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> calls) are
- described in <STRONG>PORTABILITY</STRONG> sections of the library man
+ A small number of local differences (that is, individual
+ differences between the XSI Curses and <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> calls) are
+ described in <STRONG>PORTABILITY</STRONG> sections of the library man
pages.
+ Unlike other implementations, this one checks parameters
+ such as pointers to WINDOW structures to ensure they are
+ not null. The main reason for providing this behavior is
+ to guard against programmer error. The standard interface
+ does not provide a way for the library to tell an applica-
+ tion which of several possible errors were detected.
+ Relying on this (or some other) extension will adversely
+ affect the portability of curses applications.
+
This implementation also contains several extensions:
- The routine <STRONG>has_key</STRONG> is not part of XPG4, nor is it
- present in SVr4. See the <STRONG><A HREF="curs_getch.3x.html">curs_getch(3x)</A></STRONG> manual page
- for details.
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> The routine <STRONG>has_key</STRONG> is not part of XPG4, nor is it
+ present in SVr4. See the <STRONG><A HREF="curs_getch.3x.html">curs_getch(3x)</A></STRONG> manual page
+ for details.
+
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> The routine <STRONG>slk_attr</STRONG> is not part of XPG4, nor is it
+ present in SVr4. See the <STRONG><A HREF="curs_slk.3x.html">curs_slk(3x)</A></STRONG> manual page for
+ details.
- The routine <STRONG>slk_attr</STRONG> is not part of XPG4, nor is it
- present in SVr4. See the <STRONG><A HREF="curs_slk.3x.html">curs_slk(3x)</A></STRONG> manual page
- for details.
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> The routines <STRONG>getmouse</STRONG>, <STRONG>mousemask</STRONG>, <STRONG>ungetmouse</STRONG>, <STRONG>mousein-</STRONG>
+ <STRONG>terval</STRONG>, and <STRONG>wenclose</STRONG> relating to mouse interfacing are
+ not part of XPG4, nor are they present in SVr4. See
+ the <STRONG><A HREF="curs_mouse.3x.html">curs_mouse(3x)</A></STRONG> manual page for details.
- The routines <STRONG>getmouse</STRONG>, <STRONG>mousemask</STRONG>, <STRONG>ungetmouse</STRONG>, <STRONG>mou-</STRONG>
- <STRONG>seinterval</STRONG>, and <STRONG>wenclose</STRONG> relating to mouse interfac-
- ing are not part of XPG4, nor are they present in
- SVr4. See the <STRONG><A HREF="curs_mouse.3x.html">curs_mouse(3x)</A></STRONG> manual page for
- details.
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> The routine <STRONG>mcprint</STRONG> was not present in any previous
+ curses implementation. See the <STRONG><A HREF="curs_print.3x.html">curs_print(3x)</A></STRONG> manual
+ page for details.
- The routine <STRONG>mcprint</STRONG> was not present in any previous
- curses implementation. See the <STRONG><A HREF="curs_print.3x.html">curs_print(3x)</A></STRONG> manual
- page for details.
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> The routine <STRONG>wresize</STRONG> is not part of XPG4, nor is it
+ present in SVr4. See the <STRONG><A HREF="wresize.3x.html">wresize(3x)</A></STRONG> manual page for
+ details.
- The routine <STRONG>wresize</STRONG> is not part of XPG4, nor is it
- present in SVr4. See the <STRONG><A HREF="wresize.3x.html">wresize(3x)</A></STRONG> manual page for
- details.
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> The WINDOW structure's internal details can be hidden
+ from application programs. See <STRONG><A HREF="curs_opaque.3x.html">curs_opaque(3x)</A></STRONG> for
+ the discussion of <STRONG>is_scrollok</STRONG>, etc.
- The WINDOW structure's internal details can be hidden
- from application programs. See <STRONG><A HREF="curs_opaque.3x.html">curs_opaque(3x)</A></STRONG> for
- the discussion of <STRONG>is_scrollok</STRONG>, etc.
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> This implementation can be configured to provide rudi-
+ mentary support for multi-threaded applications. See
+ <STRONG><A HREF="curs_threads.3x.html">curs_threads(3x)</A></STRONG> for details.
- In historic curses versions, delays embedded in the capa-
+ <STRONG>o</STRONG> This implementation can also be configured to provide
+ a set of functions which improve the ability to manage
+ multiple screens. See <STRONG><A HREF="curs_sp_funcs.3x.html">curs_sp_funcs(3x)</A></STRONG> for details.
+
+ In historic curses versions, delays embedded in the capa-
bilities <STRONG>cr</STRONG>, <STRONG>ind</STRONG>, <STRONG>cub1</STRONG>, <STRONG>ff</STRONG> and <STRONG>tab</STRONG> activated corresponding
- delay bits in the UNIX tty driver. In this implementa-
- tion, all padding is done by sending NUL bytes. This
- method is slightly more expensive, but narrows the inter-
- face to the UNIX kernel significantly and increases the
+ delay bits in the UNIX tty driver. In this implementa-
+ tion, all padding is done by sending NUL bytes. This
+ method is slightly more expensive, but narrows the inter-
+ face to the UNIX kernel significantly and increases the
package's portability correspondingly.
-</PRE>
-<H2>NOTES</H2><PRE>
- The header file <STRONG><curses.h></STRONG> automatically includes the
+</PRE><H2><a name="h2-NOTES">NOTES</a></H2><PRE>
+ The header file <STRONG><curses.h></STRONG> automatically includes the
header files <STRONG><stdio.h></STRONG> and <STRONG><unctrl.h></STRONG>.
- If standard output from a <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> program is re-directed
- to something which is not a tty, screen updates will be
+ If standard output from a <STRONG>ncurses</STRONG> program is re-directed
+ to something which is not a tty, screen updates will be
directed to standard error. This was an undocumented fea-
ture of AT&T System V Release 3 curses.
-</PRE>
-<H2>AUTHORS</H2><PRE>
- Zeyd M. Ben-Halim, Eric S. Raymond, Thomas E. Dickey.
+</PRE><H2><a name="h2-AUTHORS">AUTHORS</a></H2><PRE>
+ Zeyd M. Ben-Halim, Eric S. Raymond, Thomas E. Dickey.
Based on pcurses by Pavel Curtis.
<STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">ncurses(3x)</A></STRONG>
</PRE>
-<HR>
-<ADDRESS>
-Man(1) output converted with
-<a href="http://www.oac.uci.edu/indiv/ehood/man2html.html">man2html</a>
-</ADDRESS>
+<div class="nav">
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#h2-NAME">NAME</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h2-SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#h3-Initialization">Initialization</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h3-Datatypes">Datatypes</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h3-Environment-variables">Environment variables</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h3-Routine-and-Argument-Names">Routine and Argument Names</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h3-Routine-Name-Index">Routine Name Index</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#h2-RETURN-VALUE">RETURN VALUE</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h2-ENVIRONMENT">ENVIRONMENT</a>
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#h3-BAUDRATE">BAUDRATE</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h3-COLUMNS">COLUMNS</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h3-ESCDELAY">ESCDELAY</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h3-HOME">HOME</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h3-LINES">LINES</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h3-MOUSE_BUTTONS_123">MOUSE_BUTTONS_123</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h3-NCURSES_ASSUMED_COLORS">NCURSES_ASSUMED_COLORS</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h3-NCURSES_CONSOLE2">NCURSES_CONSOLE2</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h3-NCURSES_GPM_TERMS">NCURSES_GPM_TERMS</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h3-NCURSES_NO_HARD_TABS">NCURSES_NO_HARD_TABS</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h3-NCURSES_NO_PADDING">NCURSES_NO_PADDING</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h3-NCURSES_NO_SETBUF">NCURSES_NO_SETBUF</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h3-NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS">NCURSES_NO_UTF8_ACS</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h3-NCURSES_TRACE">NCURSES_TRACE</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h3-TERM">TERM</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h3-TERMCAP">TERMCAP</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h3-TERMINFO">TERMINFO</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h3-TERMINFO_DIRS">TERMINFO_DIRS</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h3-TERMPATH">TERMPATH</a></li>
+</ul>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#h2-ALTERNATE-CONFIGURATIONS">ALTERNATE CONFIGURATIONS</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h2-FILES">FILES</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h2-EXTENSIONS">EXTENSIONS</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h2-PORTABILITY">PORTABILITY</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h2-NOTES">NOTES</a></li>
+<li><a href="#h2-AUTHORS">AUTHORS</a></li>
+</ul>
+</div>
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