curs_pad(3) UNIX Programmer's Manual curs_pad(3)
newpad, subpad, prefresh, pnoutrefresh, pechochar,
pecho_wchar - create and display curses pads
#include <curses.h>
WINDOW *newpad(int nlines, int ncols);
WINDOW *subpad(WINDOW *orig, int nlines, int ncols,
int begin_y, int begin_x);
int prefresh(WINDOW *pad, int pminrow, int pmincol,
int sminrow, int smincol, int smaxrow, int smaxcol);
int pnoutrefresh(WINDOW *pad, int pminrow, int pmincol,
int sminrow, int smincol, int smaxrow, int smaxcol);
int pechochar(WINDOW *pad, chtype ch);
int pecho_wchar(WINDOW *pad, const cchar_t *wch);
The newpad routine creates and returns a pointer to a new
pad data structure with the given number of lines, nlines,
and columns, ncols. A pad is like a window, except that it
is not restricted by the screen size, and is not necessarily
associated with a particular part of the screen. Pads can be
used when a large window is needed, and only a part of the
window will be on the screen at one time. Automatic re-
freshes of pads (e.g., from scrolling or echoing of input)
do not occur. It is not legal to call wrefresh with a pad as
an argument; the routines prefresh or pnoutrefresh should be
called instead. Note that these routines require additional
parameters to specify the part of the pad to be displayed
and the location on the screen to be used for the display.
The subpad routine creates and returns a pointer to a
subwindow within a pad with the given number of lines,
nlines, and columns, ncols. Unlike subwin, which uses screen
coordinates, the window is at position (begin_x, begin_y) on
the pad. The window is made in the middle of the window
orig, so that changes made to one window affect both win-
dows. During the use of this routine, it will often be
necessary to call touchwin or touchline on orig before cal-
ling prefresh.
The prefresh and pnoutrefresh routines are analogous to
wrefresh and wnoutrefresh except that they relate to pads
instead of windows. The additional parameters are needed to
indicate what part of the pad and screen are involved. pmin-
row and pmincol specify the upper left-hand corner of the
rectangle to be displayed in the pad. sminrow, smincol,
smaxrow, and smaxcol specify the edges of the rectangle to
be displayed on the screen. The lower right-hand corner of
the rectangle to be displayed in the pad is calculated from
the screen coordinates, since the rectangles must be the
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curs_pad(3) UNIX Programmer's Manual curs_pad(3)
same size. Both rectangles must be entirely contained within
their respective structures. Negative values of pminrow,
pmincol, sminrow, or smincol are treated as if they were
zero.
The pechochar routine is functionally equivalent to a call
to addch followed by a call to refresh, a call to waddch
followed by a call to wrefresh, or a call to waddch followed
by a call to prefresh. The knowledge that only a single
character is being output is taken into consideration and,
for non-control characters, a considerable performance gain
might be seen by using these routines instead of their
equivalents. In the case of pechochar, the last location of
the pad on the screen is reused for the arguments to
prefresh.
The pecho_wchar function is the analogous wide-character
form of pechochar. It outputs one character to a pad and im-
mediately refreshes the pad. It does this by a call to
wadd_wch followed by a call to prefresh.
Routines that return an integer return ERR upon failure and
OK (SVr4 only specifies "an integer value other than ERR")
upon successful completion.
Routines that return pointers return NULL on error, and set
errno to ENOMEM.
X/Open does not define any error conditions. In this imple-
mentation
prefresh and pnoutrefresh
return an error if the window pointer is null, or
if the window is not really a pad or if the area
to refresh extends off-screen or if the minimum
coordinates are greater than the maximum.
pechochar
returns an error if the window is not really a
pad, and the associated call to wechochar returns
an error.
pecho_wchar
returns an error if the window is not really a
pad, and the associated call to wecho_wchar re-
turns an error.
Note that pechochar may be a macro.
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curs_pad(3) UNIX Programmer's Manual curs_pad(3)
The XSI Curses standard, Issue 4 describes these functions.
curses(3), curs_refresh(3), curs_touch(3), curs_addch(3).
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