1curs_inch(3X)                                                    curs_inch(3X)
2
3
4

NAME

6       inch,  winch,  mvinch,  mvwinch - get a character and attributes from a
7       curses window
8

SYNOPSIS

10       #include <curses.h>
11
12       chtype inch(void);
13       chtype winch(WINDOW *win);
14
15       chtype mvinch(int y, int x);
16       chtype mvwinch(WINDOW *win, int y, int x);
17

DESCRIPTION

19       These routines return the character, of type chtype, at the current po‐
20       sition  in  the named window.  If any attributes are set for that posi‐
21       tion, their values are OR'ed into the value  returned.   Constants  de‐
22       fined  in  <curses.h>  can be used with the & (logical AND) operator to
23       extract the character or attributes alone.
24
25   Attributes
26       The following bit-masks may  be  AND-ed  with  characters  returned  by
27       winch.
28
29       A_CHARTEXT     Bit-mask to extract character
30       A_ATTRIBUTES   Bit-mask to extract attributes
31       A_COLOR        Bit-mask to extract color-pair field information
32

RETURN VALUE

34       Functions  with  a  “mv”  prefix  first perform a cursor movement using
35       wmove, and return an error if the position is outside the window, or if
36       the window pointer is null.
37
38       The  winch  function  does  not  return an error if the window contains
39       characters larger than 8-bits (255).  Only the low-order 8 bits of  the
40       character are used by winch.
41

NOTES

43       Note that all of these routines may be macros.
44

PORTABILITY

46       These functions are described in the XSI Curses standard, Issue 4.
47
48       Very  old systems (before standardization) provide a different function
49       with the same name:
50
51       •   The winch function was part of the  original  BSD  curses  library,
52           which  stored  a  7-bit character combined with the standout attri‐
53           bute.
54
55           In BSD curses, winch returned only the character  (as  an  integer)
56           with the standout attribute removed.
57
58       •   System  V  curses  added support for several video attributes which
59           could be combined with characters in the window.
60
61           Reflecting this improvement, the function was altered to return the
62           character combined with all video attributes in a chtype value.
63
64       X/Open Curses does not specify the size and layout of attributes, color
65       and character values in chtype; it is  implementation-dependent.   This
66       implementation  uses 8 bits for character values.  An application using
67       more bits, e.g., a Unicode value, should use the wide-character equiva‐
68       lents to these functions.
69

SEE ALSO

71       curses(3X)
72            gives an overview of the WINDOW and chtype data types.
73
74       curs_attr(3X)
75            goes  into more detail, pointing out portability problems and con‐
76            straints on the use of chtype for returning window information.
77
78       curs_in_wch(3X)
79            describes comparable functions for the  wide-character  (ncursesw)
80            library.
81
82
83
84                                                                 curs_inch(3X)