# curs_attr 3x

    curs_attr(3x)                                                    curs_attr(3x)

## NAME

           attr_get, wattr_get, attr_set, wattr_set, attr_off, wattr_off, attr_on,
           wattr_on, attroff, wattroff, attron, wattron, attrset, wattrset, chgat,
           wchgat, mvchgat, mvwchgat, color_set, wcolor_set, standend, wstandend,
           standout, wstandout - curses character and window attribute control
           routines

## SYNOPSIS

           #include <curses.h>

           int attr_get(attr_t *attrs, short *pair, void *opts);
           int wattr_get(WINDOW *win, attr_t *attrs, short *pair, void *opts);
           int attr_set(attr_t attrs, short pair, void *opts);
           int wattr_set(WINDOW *win, attr_t attrs, short pair, void *opts);

           int attr_off(attr_t attrs, void *opts);
           int wattr_off(WINDOW *win, attr_t attrs, void *opts);
           int attr_on(attr_t attrs, void *opts);
           int wattr_on(WINDOW *win, attr_t attrs, void *opts);

           int attroff(int attrs);
           int wattroff(WINDOW *win, int attrs);
           int attron(int attrs);
           int wattron(WINDOW *win, int attrs);
           int attrset(int attrs);
           int wattrset(WINDOW *win, int attrs);

           int chgat(int n, attr_t attr, short pair, const void *opts);
           int wchgat(WINDOW *win,
                 int n, attr_t attr, short pair, const void *opts);
           int mvchgat(int y, int x,
                 int n, attr_t attr, short pair, const void *opts);
           int mvwchgat(WINDOW *win, int y, int x,
                 int n, attr_t attr, short pair, const void *opts);

           int color_set(short pair, void* opts);
           int wcolor_set(WINDOW *win, short pair, void* opts);

           int standend(void);
           int wstandend(WINDOW *win);
           int standout(void);
           int wstandout(WINDOW *win);

## DESCRIPTION

           These  routines  manipulate the current attributes of the named window,
           which then apply to all characters that are  written  into  the  window
           with  waddch,  waddstr  and  wprintw.  Attributes are a property of the
           character, and move with the character through any  scrolling  and  in-
           sert/delete  line/character  operations.   To the extent possible, they
           are displayed as appropriate modifications to the graphic rendition  of
           characters put on the screen.

           These  routines do not affect the attributes used when erasing portions
           of the window.  See curs_bkgd(3x) for functions which  modify  the  at-
           tributes used for erasing and clearing.

           Routines  which  do  not have a WINDOW* parameter apply to stdscr.  For
           example, attr_set is the stdscr variant of wattr_set.

### Window attributes

           There are two sets of functions:

           o   functions for manipulating the window attributes  and  color:  wat-
               tr_set and wattr_get.

           o   functions  for manipulating only the window attributes (not color):
               wattr_on and wattr_off.

           The wattr_set function sets the current attributes of the given  window
           to attrs, with color specified by pair.

           Use wattr_get to retrieve attributes for the given window.

           Use  attr_on  and  wattr_on  to turn on window attributes, i.e., values
           OR'd together in attr, without affecting  other  attributes.   Use  at-
           tr_off  and  wattr_off to turn off window attributes, again values OR'd
           together in attr, without affecting other attributes.

### Legacy window attributes

           Most of the window attribute routines are extensions of older  routines
           which  assume  that  color pairs are OR'd into the attribute parameter.
           These older routines use the same name, omitting an underscore (_).

           The attrset routine is a legacy feature predating SVr4 curses but  kept
           in X/Open Curses for the same reason that SVr4 curses kept it: compati-
           bility.

           The remaining attr* functions operate exactly  like  the  corresponding
           attr_*  functions,  except  that they take arguments of type int rather
           than attr_t.

           There is no corresponding attrget function as such  in  X/Open  Curses,
           although ncurses provides getattrs (see curs_legacy(3x)).

### Change character rendition

           The  routine  chgat changes the attributes of a given number of charac-
           ters starting at the current cursor location of stdscr.   It  does  not
           update  the cursor and does not perform wrapping.  A character count of
           -1 or greater than the remaining  window  width  means  to  change  at-
           tributes  all the way to the end of the current line.  The wchgat func-
           tion generalizes this to any window; the mvwchgat function does a  cur-
           sor move before acting.

           In  these  functions, the color pair argument is a color-pair index (as
           in the first argument of init_pair, see curs_color(3x)).

### Change window color

           The routine color_set sets the current color of the given window to the
           foreground/background  combination  described by the color pair parame-
           ter.

### Standout

           The routine standout is the same as  attron(A_STANDOUT).   The  routine
           standend  is  the  same as attrset(A_NORMAL) or attrset(0), that is, it
           turns off all attributes.

           X/Open does not mark these "restricted", because

           o   they have well established legacy use, and

           o   there is no ambiguity about the way the attributes  might  be  com-
               bined with a color pair.

## VIDEO ATTRIBUTES

           The following video attributes, defined in <curses.h>, can be passed to
           the routines attron, attroff, and attrset, or OR'd with the  characters
           passed to addch (see curs_addch(3x)).

                  Name           Description
                  -----------------------------------------------------------
                  A_NORMAL       Normal display (no highlight)
                  A_STANDOUT     Best highlighting mode of the terminal.
                  A_UNDERLINE    Underlining
                  A_REVERSE      Reverse video
                  A_BLINK        Blinking
                  A_DIM          Half bright
                  A_BOLD         Extra bright or bold
                  A_PROTECT      Protected mode
                  A_INVIS        Invisible or blank mode
                  A_ALTCHARSET   Alternate character set
                  A_ITALIC       Italics (non-X/Open extension)
                  A_CHARTEXT     Bit-mask to extract a character

           These  video  attributes are supported by attr_on and related functions
           (which also support the attributes recognized by attron, etc.):

                  Name            Description
                  -----------------------------------------
                  WA_HORIZONTAL   Horizontal highlight
                  WA_LEFT         Left highlight
                  WA_LOW          Low highlight
                  WA_RIGHT        Right highlight
                  WA_TOP          Top highlight
                  WA_VERTICAL     Vertical highlight

           The return values of many of these routines are  not  meaningful  (they
           are  implemented  as macro-expanded assignments and simply return their
           argument).  The SVr4 manual page claims (falsely) that  these  routines
           always return 1.

## NOTES

           These functions may be macros:

                  attroff,  wattroff, attron, wattron, attrset, wattrset, standend
                  and standout.

           Color pair values can only be OR'd with attributes if the  pair  number
           is less than 256.  The alternate functions such as color_set can pass a
           color pair value directly.  However, ncurses ABI 4 and 5 simply OR this
           value  within  the  alternate functions.  You must use ncurses ABI 6 to
           support more than 256 color pairs.

## EXTENSIONS

           This implementation provides the A_ITALIC attribute for terminals which
           have  the  enter_italics_mode (sitm) and exit_italics_mode (ritm) capa-
           bilities.  Italics are not mentioned in X/Open Curses.  Unlike the oth-
           er  video attributes, A_ITALIC is unrelated to the set_attributes capa-
           bilities.  This  implementation  makes  the  assumption  that  exit_at-
           tribute_mode may also reset italics.

           Each  of  the functions added by XSI Curses has a parameter opts, which
           X/Open Curses still (after more than twenty  years)  documents  as  re-
           served for future use, saying that it should be NULL.  This implementa-
           tion uses that parameter in ABI 6 for the functions which have a color-
           pair parameter to support extended color pairs:

           o   For  functions  which modify the color, e.g., wattr_set, if opts is
               set it is treated as a pointer to int, and used to  set  the  color
               pair instead of the short pair parameter.

           o   For functions which retrieve the color, e.g., wattr_get, if opts is
               set it is treated as a pointer to int, and  used  to  retrieve  the
               color pair as an int value, in addition retrieving it via the stan-
               dard pointer to short parameter.

           The remaining functions which have opts, but do not  manipulate  color,
           e.g., wattr_on and wattr_off are not used by this implementation except
           to check that they are NULL.

## PORTABILITY

           These functions are supported in the XSI Curses standard, Issue 4.  The
           standard  defined  the dedicated type for highlights, attr_t, which was
           not defined in SVr4 curses.  The functions taking attr_t arguments were
           not supported under SVr4.

           Very old versions of this library did not force an update of the screen
           when changing the attributes.  Use touchwin  to  force  the  screen  to
           match the updated attributes.

           The  XSI  Curses standard states that whether the traditional functions
           attron/attroff/attrset can manipulate attributes  other  than  A_BLINK,
           A_BOLD,  A_DIM, A_REVERSE, A_STANDOUT, or A_UNDERLINE is "unspecified".
           Under this implementation as well as SVr4 curses, these functions  cor-
           rectly  manipulate  all  other  highlights (specifically, A_ALTCHARSET,
           A_PROTECT, and A_INVIS).

           XSI Curses added these entry points:

                  attr_get, attr_on, attr_off, attr_set, wattr_on, wattr_off, wat-
                  tr_get, wattr_set

           The  new  functions are intended to work with a new series of highlight
           macros prefixed with WA_.  The older macros have direct counterparts in
           the newer set of names:

                  Name            Description
                  ------------------------------------------------------------
                  WA_NORMAL       Normal display (no highlight)
                  WA_STANDOUT     Best highlighting mode of the terminal.
                  WA_UNDERLINE    Underlining
                  WA_REVERSE      Reverse video
                  WA_BLINK        Blinking
                  WA_DIM          Half bright
                  WA_BOLD         Extra bright or bold
                  WA_ALTCHARSET   Alternate character set

           The  XSI  curses  standard specifies that each pair of corresponding A_
           and WA_-using functions operates on the same current-highlight informa-
           tion.

           The XSI standard extended conformance level adds new highlights A_HORI-
           ZONTAL, A_LEFT, A_LOW, A_RIGHT, A_TOP,  A_VERTICAL  (and  corresponding
           WA_  macros  for  each).  As of August 2013, no known terminal provides
           these highlights (i.e., via the sgr1 capability).

## RETURN VALUE

           All routines return the integer OK on success, or ERR on failure.

           X/Open does not define any error conditions.

           This implementation

           o   returns an error if the window pointer is null.

           o   returns an error if the color pair parameter for wcolor_set is out-
               side the range 0..COLOR_PAIRS-1.

           o   does  not  return an error if either of the parameters of wattr_get
               used for retrieving attribute or color-pair values is NULL.

           Functions with a "mv" prefix first  perform  a  cursor  movement  using
           wmove, and return an error if the position is outside the window, or if
           the window pointer is null.

## SEE ALSO

           curses(3x), curs_addch(3x), curs_addstr(3x), curs_bkgd(3x),
           curs_printw(3x), curs_variables(3x)

                                                                     curs_attr(3x)