curs_pad(3x) curs_pad(3x)
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 neces-
sarily 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. Au-
tomatic refreshes 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 sub-
window 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 windows. During the use of this routine, it will of-
ten be necessary to call touchwin or touchline on orig be-
fore calling 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.
The pminrow and pmincol parameters specify the upper left-
hand corner of the rectangle to be displayed in the pad.
The sminrow, smincol, smaxrow, and smaxcol parameters
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 co-
ordinates, since the rectangles must be the same size.
Both rectangles must be entirely contained within their
respective structures. Negative values of pminrow, pmin-
col, 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 fol-
lowed by a call to prefresh. The knowledge that only a
single character is being output is taken into considera-
tion and, for non-control characters, a considerable per-
formance gain might be seen by using these routines in-
stead 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
immediately 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 im-
plementation
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.
The XSI Curses standard, Issue 4 describes these func-
tions.
curses(3x), curs_refresh(3x), curs_touch(3x), curs_add-
ch(3x).
curs_pad(3x)