NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | NOTES | PORTABILITY | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

term_variables(3X)                                        term_variables(3X)

NAME         top

       SP, acs_map, boolcodes, boolfnames, boolnames, cur_term, numcodes,
       numfnames, numnames, strcodes, strfnames, strnames, ttytype - curses
       terminfo global variables

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <curses.h>
       #include <term.h>
       chtype acs_map[];
       SCREEN * SP;
       TERMINAL * cur_term;
       char ttytype[];
       NCURSES_CONST char * const * boolcodes;
       NCURSES_CONST char * const * boolfnames;
       NCURSES_CONST char * const * boolnames;
       NCURSES_CONST char * const * numcodes;
       NCURSES_CONST char * const * numfnames;
       NCURSES_CONST char * const * numnames;
       NCURSES_CONST char * const * strcodes;
       NCURSES_CONST char * const * strfnames;
       NCURSES_CONST char * const * strnames;

DESCRIPTION         top

       This page summarizes variables provided by the curses library's low-
       level terminfo interface.  A more complete description is given in
       the curs_terminfo(3X) manual page.
       Depending on the configuration, these may be actual variables, or
       macros (see curs_threads(3X)) which provide read-only access to
       curses's state.  In either case, applications should treat them as
       read-only to avoid confusing the library.
   Alternate Character Set Mapping
       After initializing the curses or terminfo interfaces, the acs_map
       array holds information used to translate cells with the A_ALTCHARSET
       video attribute into line-drawing characters.
       The encoding of the information in this array has changed
       periodically.  Application developers need only know that it is used
       for the "ACS_" constants in <curses.h>.
       The comparable data for the wide-character library is a private
       variable.
   Current Terminal Data
       After initializing the curses or terminfo interfaces, the cur_term
       contains data describing the current terminal.  This variable is also
       set as a side-effect of set_term(3X) and delscreen(3X).
       It is possible to save a value of cur_term for subsequent use as a
       parameter to set_term, for switching between screens.  Alternatively,
       one can save the return value from newterm or setupterm(3X) to reuse
       in set_term.
   Terminfo Names
       The @TIC@(1) and @INFOCMP@(1) programs use lookup tables for the long
       and short names of terminfo capabilities, as well as the
       corresponding names for termcap capabilities.  These are available to
       other applications, although the hash-tables used by the terminfo and
       termcap functions are not available.
       The long terminfo capability names use a "l" (ell) in their names:
       boolfnames, numfnames, and strfnames.
       These are the short names for terminfo capabilities: boolnames,
       numnames, and strnames.
       These are the corresponding names used for termcap descriptions:
       boolcodes, numcodes, and strcodes.
   Terminal Type
       A terminal description begins with one or more terminal names
       separated by “|” (vertical bars).  On initialization of the curses or
       terminfo interfaces, setupterm(3X) copies the terminal names to the
       array ttytype.
   Terminfo Names
       In addition to the variables, <term.h> also defines a symbol for each
       terminfo capability long name.  These are in terms of the symbol CUR,
       which is defined
       #define CUR ((TERMTYPE *)(cur_term))->
       These symbols provide a faster method of accessing terminfo
       capabilities than using tigetstr(3X), etc.
       The actual definition of CUR depends upon the implementation, but
       each terminfo library provides these long names defined to point into
       the current terminal description loaded into memory.

NOTES         top

       The low-level terminfo interface is initialized using setupterm(3X).
       The upper-level curses interface uses the low-level terminfo inter‐
       face, internally.

PORTABILITY         top

       X/Open Curses does not describe any of these except for cur_term.
       (The inclusion of cur_term appears to be an oversight, since other
       comparable low-level information is omitted by X/Open).
       Other implementations may have comparable variables.  Some
       implementations provide the variables in their libraries, but omit
       them from the header files.
       All implementations which provide terminfo interfaces add definitions
       as described in the Terminfo Names section.  Most, but not all, base
       the definition upon the cur_term variable.

SEE ALSO         top

       curses(3X), curs_terminfo(3X), curs_threads(3X), terminfo(5).

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the ncurses (new curses) project.  Information
       about the project can be found at 
       ⟨https://www.gnu.org/software/ncurses/ncurses.html⟩.  If you have a
       bug report for this manual page, send it to
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       ⟨git://ncurses.scripts.mit.edu/ncurses.git⟩ on 2017-07-05.  If you
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       COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail
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                                                          term_variables(3X)