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curs_getch(3X)							curs_getch(3X)

NAME
       getch, wgetch, mvgetch, mvwgetch, ungetch, has_key - get (or push back)
       characters from curses terminal keyboard

SYNOPSIS
       #include <curses.h>

       int getch(void);
       int wgetch(WINDOW *win);
       int mvgetch(int y, int x);
       int mvwgetch(WINDOW *win, int y, int x);
       int ungetch(int ch);
       int has_key(int ch);

DESCRIPTION
       The getch, wgetch, mvgetch and mvwgetch, routines read a character from
       the window.  In no-delay mode, if no input is waiting, the value ERR is
       returned.  In delay mode, the program waits  until  the	system	passes
       text  through to the program.  Depending on the setting of cbreak, this
       is after one character  (cbreak	mode),	or  after  the	first  newline
       (nocbreak mode).	 In half-delay mode, the program waits until a charac‐
       ter is typed or the specified timeout has been reached.

       Unless noecho has been set, then the character will also be echoed into
       the  designated window according to the following rules: if the charac‐
       ter is the current erase character, left arrow, or backspace, the  cur‐
       sor  is	moved one space to the left and that screen position is erased
       as if delch had been called.  If the character value is any other  KEY_
       define,	the user is alerted with a beep call.  Otherwise the character
       is simply output to the screen.

       If the window is not a pad, and it has been moved or modified since the
       last call to wrefresh, wrefresh will be called before another character
       is read.

       If keypad is TRUE, and a function key is pressed, the  token  for  that
       function key is returned instead of the raw characters.	Possible func‐
       tion keys are defined in <curses.h> as macros with values  outside  the
       range of 8-bit characters whose names begin with KEY_. Thus, a variable
       intended to hold the return value of a function key must	 be  of	 short
       size or larger.

       When  a	character that could be the beginning of a function key is re‐
       ceived (which, on modern terminals, means an escape character),	curses
       sets a timer.  If the remainder of the sequence does not come in within
       the designated time, the character is passed  through;  otherwise,  the
       function	 key value is returned.	 For this reason, many terminals expe‐
       rience a delay between the time a user presses the escape key  and  the
       escape is returned to the program.

       The  ungetch routine places ch back onto the input queue to be returned
       by the next call to wgetch.  There is just one input queue for all win‐
       dows.

   Function Keys
       The  following  function keys, defined in <curses.h>, might be returned
       by getch if keypad has been enabled.  Note that not all	of  these  are
       necessarily supported on any particular terminal.

       Keypad is arranged like this:

       The  has_key routine takes a key value from the above list, and returns
       TRUE or FALSE according to whether the current terminal type recognizes
       a  key  with that value.	 Note that a few values do not correspond to a
       real key, e.g., KEY_RESIZE and KEY_MOUSE.  See resizeterm(3X) for  more
       details	about  KEY_RESIZE,  and	 curs_mouse(3X)	 for  a	 discussion of
       KEY_MOUSE.

RETURN VALUE
       All routines return the integer ERR upon failure and an	integer	 value
       other  than  ERR	 (OK in the case of ungetch()) upon successful comple‐
       tion.

	      ungetch
		   returns an error if there is no more room in the FIFO.

	      wgetch
		   returns an error if the window pointer is null, or  if  its
		   timeout expires without having any data.

       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.

NOTES
       Use  of	the escape key by a programmer for a single character function
       is discouraged, as it will cause a delay of up to one second while  the
       keypad code looks for a following function-key sequence.

       Note  that  some	 keys  may  be the same as commonly used control keys,
       e.g., KEY_ENTER versus control/M, KEY_BACKSPACE versus control/H.  Some
       curses implementations may differ according to whether they treat these
       control keys specially (and ignore the terminfo), or use	 the  terminfo
       definitions.   Ncurses  uses  the terminfo definition.  If it says that
       KEY_ENTER is control/M, getch will return KEY_ENTER when you press con‐
       trol/M.

       Generally,  KEY_ENTER denotes the character(s) sent by the Enter key on
       the numeric keypad:

       ·   the terminal description lists the most useful keys,

       ·   the Enter key on the regular keyboard is  already  handled  by  the
	   standard ASCII characters for carriage-return and line-feed,

       ·   depending on whether nl or nonl was called, pressing "Enter" on the
	   regular keyboard may return either a carriage-return or  line-feed,
	   and finally

       ·   "Enter or send" is the standard description for this key.

       When   using   getch,  wgetch,  mvgetch,	 or  mvwgetch,	nocbreak  mode
       (nocbreak) and echo mode (echo) should not be used at  the  same	 time.
       Depending  on the state of the tty driver when each character is typed,
       the program may produce undesirable results.

       Note that getch, mvgetch, and mvwgetch may be macros.

       Historically, the set of keypad macros was largely defined by  the  ex‐
       tremely	function-key-rich  keyboard of the AT&T 7300, aka 3B1, aka Sa‐
       fari 4.	Modern personal computers usually have only a small subset  of
       these.	IBM  PC-style  consoles	 typically  support  little  more than
       KEY_UP, KEY_DOWN, KEY_LEFT, KEY_RIGHT,  KEY_HOME,  KEY_END,  KEY_NPAGE,
       KEY_PPAGE,  and	function  keys	1  through 12.	The Ins key is usually
       mapped to KEY_IC.

PORTABILITY
       The *get* functions are described in the XSI Curses standard, Issue  4.
       They  read  single-byte	characters  only.  The standard specifies that
       they return ERR on failure, but specifies no error conditions.

       The echo behavior of these functions on	input  of  KEY_	 or  backspace
       characters  was not specified in the SVr4 documentation.	 This descrip‐
       tion is adopted from the XSI Curses standard.

       The behavior of getch and friends in the presence of handled signals is
       unspecified in the SVr4 and XSI Curses documentation.  Under historical
       curses implementations, it varied depending on  whether	the  operating
       system's	 implementation of handled signal receipt interrupts a read(2)
       call in progress or not, and also (in some  implementations)  depending
       on whether an input timeout or non-blocking mode has been set.

       Programmers  concerned  about portability should be prepared for either
       of two cases: (a) signal receipt does not interrupt getch;  (b)	signal
       receipt	interrupts getch and causes it to return ERR with errno set to
       EINTR.  Under the ncurses implementation, handled signals never	inter‐
       rupt getch.

       The  has_key function is unique to ncurses.  We recommend that any code
       using it be conditionalized on the NCURSES_VERSION feature macro.

SEE ALSO
       curses(3X),    curs_inopts(3X),	  curs_outopts(3X),    curs_mouse(3X),
       curs_move(3X), curs_refresh(3X), resizeterm(3X).

       Comparable  functions  in the wide-character (ncursesw) library are de‐
       scribed in curs_get_wch(3X).

								curs_getch(3X)
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