+ 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-
@@ -93,49 +100,59 @@
rides raw. [See curs_getch(3x) for a discussion of how
these routines interact with echo and noecho.]
+
+
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.]
+ typed by the user are echoed by getch(3x) as they are
+ typed. Echoing by the tty driver is always disabled, but
+ initially 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.]
+
+
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
+ turned if nothing has been typed. The value of tenths
must be a number between 1 and 255. Use nocbreak to leave
half-delay mode.
- If the intrflush option is enabled, (bf is TRUE), when an
+
+
+ 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
+ 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 (bf is FALSE), the option
- prevents the flush. The default for the option is inher-
- ited from the tty driver settings. The window argument is
- ignored.
+ 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.
+
+
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.
-
+ tion key (such as an arrow key) and wgetch(3x) returns a
+ single 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 in-
+ terpret the escape sequences itself. If the keypad in the
+ terminal can be turned on (made to transmit) and off (made
+ to work locally), turning on this option causes the termi-
+ nal keypad to be turned on when wgetch(3x) is called. The
+ default value for keypad is FALSE.
+
+
+
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-
+ 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,
@@ -146,17 +163,21 @@
meta(win, TRUE) is called and rmm is sent when meta(win,
FALSE) is called.
+
+
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.
- 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
+ While interpreting an input escape sequence, wgetch(3x)
+ sets a timer while waiting for the next character. If no-
+ timeout(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.
+
+
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-
@@ -166,14 +187,18 @@
signal. The behavior of the BREAK key depends on other
bits in the tty driver that are not set by curses.
+
+
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
+ 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
+ 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.
+
+
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-
@@ -185,21 +210,22 @@
additional capability of being able to block for only de-lay milliseconds (where delay is positive).
- The curses library does ``line-breakout optimization'' by
+
+
+ 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.
+ the current update is postponed until refresh(3x) or doup-
+ date is called again. This allows faster response to com-
+ mands 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 ty-
+ peahead 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
@@ -215,8 +241,7 @@
the range 1..255.
-
These functions are described in the XSI Curses standard,
Issue 4.
@@ -229,33 +254,85 @@
ty, set echo or noecho explicitly just after initializa-
tion, even if your program remains in cooked mode.
-
-
-
NOTES
- Note that echo, noecho, halfdelay, intrflush, meta, node-
- lay, notimeout, noqiflush, qiflush, timeout, and wtimeout
+ 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
+ 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.
-