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curs_inchstr 3x 2025-08-16 ncurses 6.5 Library calls

curs_inchstr(3x)                 Library calls                curs_inchstr(3x)

NAME

       inchstr,   inchnstr,   winchstr,   winchnstr,   mvinchstr,  mvinchnstr,
       mvwinchstr, mvwinchnstr - get a curses character string from a window

SYNOPSIS

       #include <curses.h>

       int inchstr(chtype * chstr);
       int inchnstr(chtype * chstr, int n);
       int winchstr(WINDOW * win, chtype * chstr);
       int winchnstr(WINDOW * win, chtype * chstr, int n);

       int mvinchstr(int y, int x, chtype * chstr);
       int mvinchnstr(int y, int x, chtype * chstr, int n);
       int mvwinchstr(WINDOW * win, int y, int x, chtype * chstr);
       int mvwinchnstr(WINDOW * win, int y, int x, chtype * chstr,
           int n);

DESCRIPTION

       winchstr extracts a curses character string from a curses  window  win,
       starting  at the cursor and stopping at the end of the line, and stores
       it in chstr, terminating it with a null  curses  character.   winchnstr
       does  the  same,  but  copies  at most n curses characters from win.  A
       negative n implies  no  limit;  winchnstr  then  works  like  winchstr.
       ncurses(3x) describes the variants of these functions.

RETURN VALUE

       These functions return OK on success and ERR on failure.

       In ncurses, these functions fail if

       o   the curses screen has not been initialized,

       o   (for  functions  taking  a  WINDOW  pointer argument) win is a null
           pointer, or

       o   chstr is a null pointer.

       Functions prefixed with "mv" first perform cursor movement and fail  if
       the position (y, x) is outside the window boundaries.

NOTES

       All of these functions except winchnstr may be implemented as macros.

       Reading  a  line  that  overflows the array pointed to by chstr and its
       variants  causes  undefined  results.   Instead,  use   the   n-infixed
       functions  with  a  positive  n argument no larger than the size of the
       buffer backing chstr.

EXTENSIONS

       inchnstr,  winchnstr,  mvinchnstr,  and  mvwinchnstr's  acceptance   of
       negative n values is an ncurses extension.

PORTABILITY

       Applications employing ncurses extensions should condition their use on
       the visibility of the NCURSES_VERSION preprocessor macro.

       X/Open Curses Issue 4 describes these functions.  It specifies no error
       conditions  for  them.   It  characterizes  the strings stored by these
       functions as containing "at most n elements" from a  window,  but  does
       not  specify  whether  the  string  stored  by these functions is null-
       terminated.

       SVr4 does not document whether it null-terminates the curses  character
       string  it  stores  in  chstr, and does not document whether a trailing
       null curses character counts toward the length limit n.

       SVr4 describes a successful return value  only  as  "an  integer  value
       other than ERR".

HISTORY

       SVr3.1 (1987) introduced these functions.