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41 <H1 class="no-header">curs_variables 3x</H1>
43 <STRONG><A HREF="curs_variables.3x.html">curs_variables(3x)</A></STRONG> <STRONG><A HREF="curs_variables.3x.html">curs_variables(3x)</A></STRONG>
48 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-NAME">NAME</a></H2><PRE>
49 <STRONG>COLORS</STRONG>, <STRONG>COLOR_PAIRS</STRONG>, <STRONG>COLS</STRONG>, <STRONG>ESCDELAY</STRONG>, <STRONG>LINES</STRONG>, <STRONG>TABSIZE</STRONG>, <STRONG>curscr</STRONG>, <STRONG>newscr</STRONG>,
50 <STRONG>stdscr</STRONG> - <STRONG>curses</STRONG> global variables
53 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a></H2><PRE>
54 <STRONG>#include</STRONG> <STRONG><curses.h></STRONG>
56 <STRONG>int</STRONG> <STRONG>COLOR_PAIRS;</STRONG>
57 <STRONG>int</STRONG> <STRONG>COLORS;</STRONG>
58 <STRONG>int</STRONG> <STRONG>COLS;</STRONG>
59 <STRONG>int</STRONG> <STRONG>ESCDELAY;</STRONG>
60 <STRONG>int</STRONG> <STRONG>LINES;</STRONG>
61 <STRONG>int</STRONG> <STRONG>TABSIZE;</STRONG>
62 <STRONG>WINDOW</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG> <STRONG>curscr;</STRONG>
63 <STRONG>WINDOW</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG> <STRONG>newscr;</STRONG>
64 <STRONG>WINDOW</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG> <STRONG>stdscr;</STRONG>
67 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a></H2><PRE>
68 This page summarizes variables provided by the <STRONG>curses</STRONG> library. A more
69 complete description is given in the <STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">curses(3x)</A></STRONG> manual page.
71 Depending on the configuration, these may be actual variables, or
72 macros (see <STRONG><A HREF="curs_threads.3x.html">curs_threads(3x)</A></STRONG> and <STRONG><A HREF="curs_opaque.3x.html">curs_opaque(3x)</A></STRONG>) which provide read-
73 only access to <EM>curses</EM>'s state. In either case, applications should
74 treat them as read-only to avoid confusing the library.
77 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-COLOR_PAIRS">COLOR_PAIRS</a></H3><PRE>
78 After initializing curses, this variable contains the number of color
79 pairs which the terminal can support. Usually the number of color
80 pairs will be the product <STRONG>COLORS</STRONG>*<STRONG>COLORS</STRONG>, however this is not always
83 <STRONG>o</STRONG> a few terminals use HLS colors, which do not follow this rule
85 <STRONG>o</STRONG> terminals supporting a large number of colors are limited by the
86 number of color pairs that can be represented in a <EM>signed</EM> <EM>short</EM>
90 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-COLORS">COLORS</a></H3><PRE>
91 After initializing curses, this variable contains the number of colors
92 which the terminal can support.
95 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-COLS">COLS</a></H3><PRE>
96 After initializing curses, this variable contains the width of the
97 screen, i.e., the number of columns.
100 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-ESCDELAY">ESCDELAY</a></H3><PRE>
101 This variable holds the number of milliseconds to wait after reading an
102 escape character, to distinguish between an individual escape character
103 entered on the keyboard from escape sequences sent by cursor- and func-
104 tion-keys (see <STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">curses(3x)</A></STRONG>).
107 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-LINES">LINES</a></H3><PRE>
108 After initializing curses, this variable contains the height of the
109 screen, i.e., the number of lines.
112 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-TABSIZE">TABSIZE</a></H3><PRE>
113 This variable holds the number of columns used by the <EM>curses</EM> library
114 when converting a tab character to spaces as it adds the tab to a win-
115 dow (see <STRONG><A HREF="curs_addch.3x.html">curs_addch(3x)</A></STRONG>.
118 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-The-Current-Screen">The Current Screen</a></H3><PRE>
119 This implementation of curses uses a special window <STRONG>curscr</STRONG> to record
120 its updates to the terminal screen.
122 This is referred to as the "physical screen" in the <STRONG><A HREF="curs_refresh.3x.html">curs_refresh(3x)</A></STRONG>
123 and <STRONG><A HREF="curs_outopts.3x.html">curs_outopts(3x)</A></STRONG> manual pages.
126 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-The-New-Screen">The New Screen</a></H3><PRE>
127 This implementation of curses uses a special window <STRONG>newscr</STRONG> to hold up-
128 dates to the terminal screen before applying them to <STRONG>curscr</STRONG>.
130 This is referred to as the "virtual screen" in the <STRONG><A HREF="curs_kernel.3x.html">curs_kernel(3x)</A></STRONG>,
131 <STRONG><A HREF="curs_refresh.3x.html">curs_refresh(3x)</A></STRONG> and <STRONG><A HREF="curs_outopts.3x.html">curs_outopts(3x)</A></STRONG> manual pages.
134 </PRE><H3><a name="h3-The-Standard-Screen">The Standard Screen</a></H3><PRE>
135 Upon initializing curses, a default window called <STRONG>stdscr</STRONG>, which is the
136 size of the terminal screen, is created. Many curses functions use
140 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-NOTES">NOTES</a></H2><PRE>
141 The curses library is initialized using either <STRONG><A HREF="curs_initscr.3x.html">initscr(3x)</A></STRONG>, or
142 <STRONG><A HREF="curs_initscr.3x.html">newterm(3x)</A></STRONG>.
144 If <STRONG>curses</STRONG> is configured to use separate curses/terminfo libraries, most
145 of these variables reside in the curses library.
148 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-PORTABILITY">PORTABILITY</a></H2><PRE>
149 <STRONG>TABSIZE</STRONG> is a feature of SVr4 curses which is not documented by X/Open
152 <STRONG>o</STRONG> In SVr4 curses, <STRONG>TABSIZE</STRONG> is initially set from the terminal descrip-
153 tion's <STRONG>init_tabs</STRONG> capability. After that, it can be altered by the
154 applications using SVr4 curses.
156 SVr4 curses uses the current value of <STRONG>TABSIZE</STRONG> to compute the posi-
157 tion of tabstops for updating both the virtual screen with <STRONG>add-</STRONG>
158 <STRONG><A HREF="addch.3x.html">ch(3x)</A></STRONG> as well as the physical screen with <STRONG><A HREF="curs_terminfo.3x.html">mvcur(3x)</A></STRONG>.
160 <STRONG>o</STRONG> This implementation uses the current value of <STRONG>TABSIZE</STRONG> only for up-
161 dating the virtual screen. It uses the terminal description's <STRONG>it</STRONG>
162 (<STRONG>init_tabs</STRONG>) capability for computing hardware tabs (i.e., tab stops
163 on the physical screen).
165 <STRONG>o</STRONG> Other implementations differ. For instance, NetBSD curses allows
166 <STRONG>TABSIZE</STRONG> to be set through an environment variable. This implemen-
169 NetBSD curses does not support hardware tabs; it uses the <STRONG>init_tabs</STRONG>
170 capability and the <STRONG>TABSIZE</STRONG> variable only for updating the virtual
173 <STRONG>ESCDELAY</STRONG> is an extension in AIX curses:
175 <STRONG>o</STRONG> In AIX, the units for <STRONG>ESCDELAY</STRONG> are <EM>fifths</EM> of a millisecond.
177 <STRONG>o</STRONG> The default value for AIX's <STRONG>ESCDELAY</STRONG> is 0.1 seconds.
179 <STRONG>o</STRONG> AIX also enforces a limit of 10,000 seconds for <STRONG>ESCDELAY</STRONG>; this im-
180 plementation currently has no upper limit.
182 This implementation has long used <STRONG>ESCDELAY</STRONG> with units of milliseconds,
183 making it impossible to be completely compatible with AIX. Likewise,
184 most users have either decided to override the value, or rely upon its
188 </PRE><H2><a name="h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></H2><PRE>
189 <STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">curses(3x)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="curs_opaque.3x.html">curs_opaque(3x)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="curs_terminfo.3x.html">curs_terminfo(3x)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="curs_threads.3x.html">curs_threads(3x)</A></STRONG>,
190 <STRONG><A HREF="term_variables.3x.html">term_variables(3x)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="terminfo.5.html">terminfo(5)</A></STRONG>.
194 <STRONG><A HREF="curs_variables.3x.html">curs_variables(3x)</A></STRONG>
198 <li><a href="#h2-NAME">NAME</a></li>
199 <li><a href="#h2-SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a></li>
200 <li><a href="#h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a>
202 <li><a href="#h3-COLOR_PAIRS">COLOR_PAIRS</a></li>
203 <li><a href="#h3-COLORS">COLORS</a></li>
204 <li><a href="#h3-COLS">COLS</a></li>
205 <li><a href="#h3-ESCDELAY">ESCDELAY</a></li>
206 <li><a href="#h3-LINES">LINES</a></li>
207 <li><a href="#h3-TABSIZE">TABSIZE</a></li>
208 <li><a href="#h3-The-Current-Screen">The Current Screen</a></li>
209 <li><a href="#h3-The-New-Screen">The New Screen</a></li>
210 <li><a href="#h3-The-Standard-Screen">The Standard Screen</a></li>
213 <li><a href="#h2-NOTES">NOTES</a></li>
214 <li><a href="#h2-PORTABILITY">PORTABILITY</a></li>
215 <li><a href="#h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></li>