- The trace routines are used for debugging the ncurses
- libraries, as well as applications which use the ncurses
- libraries. These functions are normally available only
- with the debugging library libncurses_g.a, but may be com-
- piled into any model (shared, static, profile) by defining
- the symbol TRACE.
-
- The principal parts of this interface are the trace rou-
- tine which selectively enables different tracing features,
- and the _tracef routine which writes formatted data to the
- trace file.
-
- Calling trace with a nonzero parameter opens the file
- trace in the current directory for output. The parameter
- is formed by OR'ing values from the list of TRACE_xxx def-
- initions in <curses.h>. These include:
-
- TRACE_DISABLE
- turn off tracing.
-
- TRACE_TIMES
+
+
+ The trace routines are used for debugging the ncurses libraries, as
+ well as applications which use the ncurses libraries. These functions
+ are normally available only with the debugging library e.g., libncurs-
+ es_g.a, but may be compiled into any model (shared, static, profile) by
+ defining the symbol TRACE. Additionally, some functions are only
+ available with the wide-character configuration of the libraries.
+
+
+
+ The principal parts of this interface are
+
+ otrace, which selectively enables different tracing features, and
+
+ o_tracef, which writes formatted data to the trace file.
+
+ Calling trace with a nonzero parameter creates the file trace in the
+ current directory for output. If the file already exists, no tracing
+ is done.
+
+ The other functions either return a pointer to a string-area (allocated
+ by the corresponding function), or return no value (such as _tracedump,
+ which implements the screen dump for TRACE_UPDATE). The caller should
+ not free these strings, since the allocation is reused on successive
+ calls. To work around the problem of a single string-area per func-
+ tion, some use a buffer-number parameter, telling the library to allo-
+ cate additional string-areas.
+
+
+
+ The trace parameter is formed by OR'ing values from the list of
+ TRACE_xxx definitions in <curses.h>. These include:
+
+ TRACE_DISABLE
+ turn off tracing by passing a zero parameter.
+
+ The library flushes the output file, but retains an open file-de-
+ scriptor to the trace file so that it can resume tracing later if
+ a nonzero parameter is passed to the trace function.
+
+ TRACE_TIMES
trace user and system times of updates.
- TRACE_TPUTS
- trace tputs calls.
+ TRACE_TPUTS
+ trace tputs(3x) calls.
- TRACE_UPDATE
+ TRACE_UPDATE
trace update actions, old & new screens.
- TRACE_MOVE
+ TRACE_MOVE
trace cursor movement and scrolling.
- TRACE_CHARPUT
+ TRACE_CHARPUT
trace all character outputs.
- TRACE_ORDINARY
- trace all update actions. The old and new screen
- contents are written to the trace file for each
- refresh.
+ TRACE_ORDINARY
+ trace all update actions. The old and new screen contents are
+ written to the trace file for each refresh.
- TRACE_CALLS
- trace all curses calls. The parameters for each call
- are traced, as well as return values.
+ TRACE_CALLS
+ trace all curses calls. The parameters for each call are traced,
+ as well as return values.
- TRACE_VIRTPUT
- trace virtual character puts, i.e., calls to addch.
+ TRACE_VIRTPUT
+ trace virtual character puts, i.e., calls to addch.
- TRACE_IEVENT
+ TRACE_IEVENT
trace low-level input processing, including timeouts.
- TRACE_BITS
+ TRACE_BITS
trace state of TTY control bits.
- TRACE_ICALLS
+ TRACE_ICALLS
trace internal/nested calls.
- TRACE_CCALLS
+ TRACE_CCALLS
trace per-character calls.
- TRACE_DATABASE
+ TRACE_DATABASE
trace read/write of terminfo/termcap data.
- TRACE_ATTRS
+ TRACE_ATTRS
trace changes to video attributes and colors.
- TRACE_MAXIMUM
- maximum trace level, enables all of the separate
- trace features.
+ TRACE_MAXIMUM
+ maximum trace level, enables all of the separate trace features.
- Some tracing features are enabled whenever the trace
- parameter is nonzero. Some features overlap. The
- specific names are used as a guideline.
+ Some tracing features are enabled whenever the trace parameter is
+ nonzero. Some features overlap. The specific names are used as a
+ guideline.
-
-
RETURN VALUE
- Routines which return a value are designed to be used as
- parameters to the _tracef routine.
+
+ These functions check the NCURSES_TRACE environment variable, to set
+ the tracing feature as if trace was called:
+ filter, initscr, new_prescr, newterm, nofilter, restartterm,
+ ripoffline, setupterm, slk_init, tgetent, use_env,
+ use_extended_names, use_tioctl
-
-
PORTABILITY
- These functions are not part of the XSI interface. Some
- other curses implementations are known to have similar,
- undocumented features, but they are not compatible with
- ncurses.
+
+ The command-line utilities such as tic(1) provide a verbose option
+ which extends the set of messages written using the trace function.
+ Both of these (-v and trace) use the same variable (_nc_tracing), which
+ determines the messages which are written.
+
+ Because the command-line utilities may call initialization functions
+ such as setupterm, tgetent or use_extended_names, some of their debug-
+ ging output may be directed to the trace file if the NCURSES_TRACE en-
+ vironment variable is set:
+
+ o messages produced in the utility are written to the standard error.
+
+ o messages produced by the underlying library are written to trace.
+
+ If ncurses is built without tracing, none of the latter are produced,
+ and fewer diagnostics are provided by the command-line utilities.
+
+
+
+ These functions are not part of the XSI interface. Some other curses
+ implementations are known to have similar, undocumented features, but
+ they are not compatible with ncurses.
+
+ A few functions are not provided when symbol versioning is used:
+
+ _nc_tracebits, _tracedump, _tracemouse
-