curs_print(3) UNIX Programmer's Manual curs_print(3)
mcprint - ship binary data to printer
#include <curses.h>
int mcprint(char *data, int len);
This function uses the mc5p or mc4 and mc5 capabilities, if
they are present, to ship given data to a printer attached
to the terminal.
Note that the mcprint code has no way to do flow control
with the printer or to know how much buffering it has. Your
application is responsible for keeping the rate of writes to
the printer below its continuous throughput rate (typically
about half of its nominal cps rating). Dot-matrix printers
and 6-page-per-minute lasers can typically handle 80cps, so
a good conservative rule of thumb is to sleep for a second
after shipping each 80-character line.
The mcprint function returns ERR if the write operation
aborted for some reason. In this case, errno will contain
either an error associated with write(2) or one of the fol-
lowing:
ENODEV
Capabilities for printer redirection do not exist.
ENOMEM
Couldn't allocate sufficient memory to buffer the
printer write.
When mcprint succeeds, it returns the number of charac-
ters actually sent to the printer.
The mcprint call was designed for ncurses(3), and is not
found in SVr4 curses, 4.4BSD curses, or any other previous
version of curses.
Padding in the mc5p, mc4 and mc5 capabilities will not be
interpreted.
curses(3)
MirBSD #10-current Printed 2022-12-23 1