curs_inopts(3x) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | PORTABILITY | NOTES | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

curs_inopts(3X)                                          curs_inopts(3X)

NAME         top

       cbreak, nocbreak, echo, noecho, halfdelay, intrflush, keypad,
       meta, nl, nonl, nodelay, notimeout, raw, noraw, qiflush,
       noqiflush, timeout, wtimeout, typeahead - curses input options

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <curses.h>

       int cbreak(void);
       int nocbreak(void);

       int echo(void);
       int noecho(void);

       int intrflush(WINDOW *win, bool bf);
       int keypad(WINDOW *win, bool bf);
       int meta(WINDOW *win, bool bf);
       int nodelay(WINDOW *win, bool bf);
       int notimeout(WINDOW *win, bool bf);

       int nl(void);
       int nonl(void);

       int raw(void);
       int noraw(void);

       void qiflush(void);
       void noqiflush(void);

       int halfdelay(int tenths);
       void timeout(int delay);
       void wtimeout(WINDOW *win, int delay);

       int typeahead(int fd);

DESCRIPTION         top

       The  ncurses  library provides several functions which let an ap‐
       plication change the way input  from  the  terminal  is  handled.
       Some are global, applying to all windows.  Others apply only to a
       specific  window.  Window-specific settings are not automatically
       applied to new or derived windows.   An  application  must  apply
       these to each window, if the same behavior is needed.

   cbreak/nocbreak
       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-processing (interrupt and flow
       control characters are unaffected), making  characters  typed  by
       the user immediately available to the program.  The nocbreak rou‐
       tine returns the terminal to normal (cooked) mode.

       Initially  the  terminal may or may not be in cbreak mode, as the
       mode is inherited; therefore, a program  should  call  cbreak  or
       nocbreak  explicitly.  Most interactive programs using curses set
       the  cbreak  mode.   Note  that  cbreak  overrides   raw.    [See
       curs_getch(3X)  for  a  discussion of how these routines interact
       with echo and noecho.]

   echo/noecho
       The echo and noecho routines control whether characters 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  interac‐
       tive 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.]

   halfdelay
       The halfdelay routine is used for half-delay mode, which is simi‐
       lar to cbreak mode in that characters typed by the user are imme‐
       diately  available  to  the program.  However, after blocking for
       tenths tenths of seconds, ERR is returned  if  nothing  has  been
       typed.   The  value of tenths must be a number between 1 and 255.
       Use nocbreak to leave half-delay mode.

   intrflush
       If the intrflush option is enabled (bf is TRUE), and an interrupt
       key is pressed on the keyboard (interrupt, break, quit), all out‐
       put in the tty driver queue will be flushed, giving the effect of
       faster response to the interrupt, but causing curses to have  the
       wrong idea of what is on the screen.  Disabling the option (bf is
       FALSE)  prevents the flush.  The default for the option is inher‐
       ited from the tty driver settings.  The window  argument  is  ig‐
       nored.

   keypad
       The  keypad option enables the keypad of the user's terminal.  If
       enabled (bf is TRUE), the user can press a function 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  interpret  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 terminal keypad
       to be turned on when wgetch(3X) is called.  The default value for
       keypad is FALSE.

   meta
       Initially, whether the terminal returns 7 or 8  significant  bits
       on  input  depends  on  the  control  mode of the tty driver [see
       termios(3)].  To force 8 bits to be  returned,  invoke  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, under POSIX, to setting the
       CS7  flag  on  the terminal.  The window argument, win, is always
       ignored.  If the terminfo  capabilities  smm  (meta_on)  and  rmm
       (meta_off)  are defined for the terminal, smm is sent to the ter‐
       minal when meta(win,  TRUE)  is  called  and  rmm  is  sent  when
       meta(win, FALSE) is called.

   nl/nonl
       The  nl  and nonl routines control whether the underlying display
       device translates the return key into newline on input.

   nodelay
       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.

   notimeout
       When  interpreting  an  escape  sequence, wgetch(3X) sets a timer
       while waiting for the next character.  If notimeout(win, TRUE) is
       called, then wgetch does not set a timer.   The  purpose  of  the
       timeout  is  to  differentiate  between sequences received from a
       function key and those typed by a user.

   raw/noraw
       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  user  program.   The
       differences  are  that in raw mode, the interrupt, quit, suspend,
       and flow control characters are all passed through uninterpreted,
       instead of generating a signal.  The behavior of  the  BREAK  key
       depends on other bits in the tty driver that are not set by curs‐
       es.

   qiflush/noqiflush
       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 termios(3)].  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 the interrupt had not occurred,  af‐
       ter the handler exits.

   timeout/wtimeout
       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 input).  If delay is zero,
       then non-blocking read is used (i.e., read returns ERR if no  in‐
       put  is waiting).  If delay is positive, then read blocks for de‐
       lay milliseconds, and returns ERR if there  is  still  no  input.
       Hence,  these routines provide the same functionality as nodelay,
       plus the additional capability of being able to  block  for  only
       delay milliseconds (where delay is positive).

   typeahead
       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(3X) 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 check‐
       ing.  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.

RETURN VALUE         top

       All  routines  that return an integer return ERR upon failure and
       OK (SVr4 specifies only “an integer value other than  ERR”)  upon
       successful  completion,  unless  otherwise noted in the preceding
       routine descriptions.

       X/Open does not define any error conditions.  In this implementa‐
       tion, functions with a window parameter will return an  error  if
       it is null.  Any function will also return an error if the termi‐
       nal was not initialized.  Also,

              halfdelay
                   returns an error if its parameter is outside the
                   range 1..255.

PORTABILITY         top

       These functions are described in the XSI Curses standard, Issue
       4.

       The ncurses library obeys the XPG4 standard and the historical
       practice of the AT&T curses implementations, in that the echo bit
       is cleared when curses initializes the terminal state.  BSD curs‐
       es differed from this slightly; it left the echo bit on at ini‐
       tialization, but the BSD raw call turned it off as a side-effect.
       For best portability, set echo or noecho explicitly just after
       initialization, even if your program remains in cooked mode.

       The XSI Curses standard is ambiguous on the question of whether
       raw should disable the CRLF translations controlled by nl and
       nonl.  BSD curses did turn off these translations; AT&T curses
       (at least as late as SVr1) did not.  We chose to do so, on the
       theory that a programmer requesting raw input wants a clean (ide‐
       ally 8-bit clean) connection that the operating system will not
       alter.

       When keypad is first enabled, ncurses loads the key-definitions
       for the current terminal description.  If the terminal descrip‐
       tion includes extended string capabilities, e.g., from using the
       -x option of @TIC@, then ncurses also defines keys for the capa‐
       bilities whose names begin with “k”.  The corresponding keycodes
       are generated and (depending on previous loads of terminal de‐
       scriptions) may differ from one execution of a program to the
       next.  The generated keycodes are recognized by the keyname func‐
       tion (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 capabili‐
       ty's presence with tigetstr, and reassign the keycode to match
       its own needs.

       Low-level applications can use tigetstr to obtain the definition
       of any particular string capability.  Higher-level applications
       which use the curses wgetch and similar functions to return key‐
       codes 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
       determines the keycode which will be returned.  In ncurses, you
       may also have extended capabilities interpreted as key defini‐
       tions.  These are loaded after the predefined keys, and if a ca‐
       pability's value is the same as a previously-loaded key defini‐
       tion, the later definition is the one used.

NOTES         top

       Note that echo, noecho, halfdelay, intrflush, meta, nl, nonl,
       nodelay, 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 recommended.

SEE ALSO         top

       curses(3X), curs_getch(3X), curs_initscr(3X), curs_util(3X), de‐
       fine_key(3X), termios(3)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the ncurses (new curses) project.  Informa‐
       tion about the project can be found at 
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       a bug report for this manual page, send it to
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       ⟨https://github.com/mirror/ncurses.git⟩ on 2024-06-14.  (At that
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                                                         curs_inopts(3X)