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.\"***************************************************************************
.\" Copyright 2018-2022,2023 Thomas E. Dickey *
.\" Copyright 1998-2010,2017 Free Software Foundation, Inc. *
.\" *
.\" Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a *
.\" copy of this software and associated documentation files (the *
.\" "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including *
.\" without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, *
.\" distribute, distribute with modifications, sublicense, and/or sell *
.\" copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is *
.\" furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: *
.\" *
.\" The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included *
.\" in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. *
.\" *
.\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS *
.\" OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF *
.\" MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. *
.\" IN NO EVENT SHALL THE ABOVE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, *
.\" DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR *
.\" OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR *
.\" THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. *
.\" *
.\" Except as contained in this notice, the name(s) of the above copyright *
.\" holders shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the *
.\" sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written *
.\" authorization. *
.\"***************************************************************************
.\"
.\" $Id: curs_printw.3x,v 1.47 2023/12/23 14:41:07 tom Exp $
.TH curs_printw 3X 2023-12-23 "ncurses 6.4" "Library calls"
.ie \n(.g \{\
.ds `` \(lq
.ds '' \(rq
.\}
.el \{\
.ie t .ds `` ``
.el .ds `` ""
.ie t .ds '' ''
.el .ds '' ""
.\}
.
.de bP
.ie n .IP \(bu 4
.el .IP \(bu 2
..
.SH NAME
\fB\%printw\fP,
\fB\%wprintw\fP,
\fB\%mvprintw\fP,
\fB\%mvwprintw\fP,
\fB\%vwprintw\fP,
\fB\%vw_printw\fP \-
write formatted output to a \fIcurses\fR window
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
\fB#include <curses.h>
.PP
\fBint printw(const char *\fIfmt\fP, ...);
\fBint wprintw(WINDOW *\fIwin\fP, const char *\fIfmt\fP, ...);
\fBint mvprintw(int \fIy\fP, int \fIx\fP, const char *\fIfmt\fP, ...);
\fBint mvwprintw(WINDOW *\fIwin\fP, int \fIy\fP, int \fIx\fP, const char *\fIfmt\fP, ...);
.PP
\fBint vw_printw(WINDOW *\fIwin\fP, const char *\fIfmt\fP, va_list \fIvarglist\fP);
.PP
\fI/* obsolete */\fP
\fBint vwprintw(WINDOW *\fIwin\fP, const char *\fIfmt\fP, va_list \fIvarglist\fP);
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
\fB\%printw\fP,
\fB\%wprintw\fP,
\fB\%mvprintw\fP,
and
\fB\%mvwprintw\fP
are analogous to \fI\%printf\fP(3).
In effect,
the string that would be output by \fI\%printf\fP(3) is instead output
as though \fB\%waddstr\fP(3X) were used with
.I win
(or
.BR \%stdscr )
as its first argument.
.PP
\fB\%vwprintw\fP
and
\fB\%vw_printw\fP are analogous to \fI\%vprintf\fP(3),
and perform a \fB\%wprintw\fP using a variable argument list.
The third argument is a \fI\%va_list\fP,
a pointer to a list of arguments,
as defined in \fI\%stdarg.h\fP.
.SH RETURN VALUE
These functions return
.B ERR
upon failure and
.B OK
upon success.
.PP
In
.I \%ncurses,
failure occurs if the library cannot allocate enough memory for the
buffer into which the output is formatted,
or if the window pointer
.I win
is null.
.PP
Functions with a \*(``mv\*('' prefix first perform a cursor movement
using \fB\%wmove\fP,
and fail if the position is outside the window.
.SH NOTES
No wide character counterpart functions are defined by the
\*(``wide\*(''
.I \%ncurses
configuration nor by any standard.
To format and write a wide-character string to a
.I curses
window,
consider using \fI\%swprintf\fP(3) and \fB\%waddwstr\fP(3X) or similar.
.SH PORTABILITY
X/Open Curses, Issue 4, describes these functions.
It specifies no error conditions for them.
.PP
.I \%ncurses
defines \fB\%vw_printw\fP and \fB\%vwprintw\fP identically to support
legacy applications.
However,
the latter is obsolete.
.bP
X/Open Curses, Issue 4, Version 2 (1996),
marked \fB\%vwprintw\fP as requiring \fI\%varargs.h\fP and
\*(``TO BE WITHDRAWN\*('',
and specified \fB\%vw_printw\fP using the \fI\%stdarg.h\fP interface.
.bP
X/Open Curses, Issue 5, Draft 2
(December 2007) marked \fBvwprintw\fP (along with
\fBvwscanw\fP and the \fItermcap\fP interface) as withdrawn.
After incorporating review comments,
this became
X/Open Curses, Issue 7 (2009).
.bP
.I \%ncurses
provides \fB\%vwprintw\fP,
but marks it as deprecated.
.SH HISTORY
While \fB\%printw\fP was implemented in 4BSD
(November 1980),
.\" https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4BSD/usr/src/lib/\
.\" libcurses/printw.c
it was unused until 4.2BSD
(August 1983),
which employed it for games.
That early version of
.I curses
preceded the ANSI C standard of 1989.
It did not use \fI\%varargs.h\fP,
though that had been available since Seventh Edition Unix (1979).
.\" https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V7/usr/include/\
.\" varargs.h
In 1991
(a couple of years after SVr4 was generally available,
and after the C standard was published),
other developers updated the library,
using \fI\%stdarg.h\fP internally in 4.4BSD
.I curses.
Even with this improvement,
BSD
.I curses
did not use function prototypes
(nor even declare functions)
in \fI\%curses.h\fP until 1992.
.PP
SVr2 (1984) documented \fB\%printw\fP and \fB\%wprintw\fP tersely as
\*(``printf on \fB\%stdscr\fP\*('' and
\*(``printf on \fIwin\fP\*('',
respectively.
.PP
SVr3 (1987) added \fB\%mvprintw\fP and \fB\%mvwprintw\fP,
with a three-line summary asserting that they were analogous to
\fI\%printf\fP(3),
explaining that the string that \fI\%printf\fP(3) would write to the
standard output stream would instead be output using \fB\%waddstr\fP to
the given window.
SVr3 also implemented \fB\%vwprintw\fP,
describing its third parameter as a \fI\%va_list\fP,
defined in \fI\%varargs.h\fP,
and referred the reader to the manual pages for \fI\%varargs\fP and
\fI\%vprintf\fP for detailed descriptions.
.PP
SVr4 (1989) introduced no new variations of \fI\%printw\fP,
but provided for using either \fI\%varargs.h\fP or \fI\%stdarg.h\fP to
define the \fI\%va_list\fP type.
.\" either header declares "va_list", but only one can be used
.PP
X/Open Curses, Issue 4 (1995),
defined \fB\%vw_printw\fP to replace \fB\%vwprintw\fP,
stating that its \fI\%va_list\fP type is defined in \fI\%stdarg.h\fP.
.SH SEE ALSO
\fB\%curses\fP(3X),
\fB\%curs_addstr\fP(3X),
\fB\%curs_scanw\fP(3X),
\fB\%printf\fP(3),
\fB\%vprintf\fP(3)
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