KEYPAD(3XCURSES) X/Open Curses Library Functions KEYPAD(3XCURSES)

keypad - enable/disable keypad handling

cc [ flag... ] file... -I /usr/xpg4/include  -L  /usr/xpg4/lib \
 -R  /usr/xpg4/lib  -lcurses  [ library... ]
c89 [ flag... ] file... -lcurses [ library... ]
#include <curses.h>
int keypad(WINDOW *win, bool bf);

win

Is a pointer to the window in which to enable/disable keypad handling.

bf

Is a Boolean expression.

The keypad() function controls keypad translation. If bf is TRUE, keypad translation is enabled. If bf is FALSE, keypad translation is disabled. The initial state is FALSE.

This function affects the behavior of any function that provides keyboard input.

If the terminal in use requires a command to enable it to transmit distinctive codes when a function key is pressed, then after keypad translation is first enabled, the implementation transmits this command to the terminal before an affected input function tries to read any characters from that terminal.

The Curses input model provides the following ways to obtain input from the keyboard:

The application can enable or disable keypad translation by calling keypad(). When translation is enabled, Curses attempts to translate a sequence of terminal input that represents the pressing of a function into a single key code. When translation is disabled, Curses passes terminal input to the application without such translation, and any interpretation of the input as representing the pressing of a keypad key must be done by the application.

The complete set of key codes for keypad keys that Curses can process is specified by the constants defined in <curses.h> whose names begin with "KEY_". Each terminal type described in the terminfo database may support some or all of these key codes. The terminfo database specifies the sequence of input characters from the terminal type that correspond to each key code.

The Curses inplementation cannot translate keypad keys on terminals where pressing the keys does not transmit a unique sequence.

When translation is enabled and a character that could be the beginning of a function key (such as escape) is received, Curses notes the time and begins accumulating characters. If Curses receives additional characters that represent the processing of a keypad key within an unspecified interval from the time the character was received, then Curses converts this input to a key code for presentation to the application. If such characters are not received during this interval, translation of this input does not occur and the individual characters are presented to the application separately. (Because Curses waits for this interval to accumulate a key code, many terminals experience a delay between the time a user presses the escape key and the time the escape key is returned to the application.)

In addition, No Timeout Mode provides that in any case where Curses has received part of a function key sequence, it waits indefinitely for the complete key sequence. The "unspecified interval" in the previous paragraph becomes infinite in No Timeout Mode. No Timeout Mode allows the use of function keys over slow communication lines. No Timeout Mode lets the user type the individual characters of a function key sequence, but also delays application response when the user types a character (not a function key) that begins a function key sequence. For this reason, in No Timeout Mode many terminals will appear to hang between the time a user presses the escape key and the time another key is pressed. No Timeout Mode is switchable by calling notimeout(3XCURSES).

If any special characters (<backspace>, <carriage return>, <newline>, <tab>) are defined or redefined to be characters that are members of a function key sequence, then Curses will be unable to recognize and translate those function keys.

Several of the modes discussed below are described in terms of availability of input. If keypad translation is enabled, then input is not available once Curses has begun receiving a keypad sequence until the sequence is completely received or the interval has elapsed.

The following four mutually-specific Curses modes let the application control the effect of flow-control characters, the interrupt character, the erase character, and the kill character:

Input Mode Effect
Cooked Mode This achieves normal line-at-a-time processing with all special characters handled outside the application. This achieves the same effect as canonical-mode input processing. The state of the ISIG and IXON flags are not changed upon entering this mode by calling nocbreak(3XCURSES), and are set upon entering this mode by calling noraw(3XCURSES).Erase and kill characters are supported from any supported locale, no matter the width of the character.
cbreak Mode Characters typed by the user are immediately available to the application and Curses does not perform special processing on either the erase character or the kill character. An application can set cbreak mode to do its own line editing but to let the abort character be used to abort the task. This mode achieves the same effect as non-canonical-mode, Case B input processing (with MIN set to 1 and ICRNL cleared.) The state of the ISIG and IXON flags are not changed upon entering this mode.
Half-Delay Mode The effect is the same as cbreak, except that input functions wait until a character is available or an interval defined by the application elapses, whichever comes first. This mode achieves the same effect as non-canonical-mode, Case C input processing (with TIME set to the value specified by the application.) The state of the ISIG and IXON flags are not changed upon entering this mode.
Raw Mode Raw mode gives the application maximum control over terminal input. The application sees each character as it is typed. This achieves the same effect as non-canonical mode, Case D input processing. The ISIG and IXON flags are cleared upon entering this mode.

The terminal interface settings are reported when the process calls initscr(3XCURSES) or newterm(3XCURSES) to initialize Curses and restores these settings when endwin(3XCURSES) is called. The initial input mode for Curses operations is especially unless Enhanced Curses compliance, in which the initial mode is cbreak mode, is supported.

The behavior of the BREAK key depends on other bits in the display driver that are not set by Curses.

Two mutually-exclusive delay modes specify how quickly certain Curses functions return to the application when there is no terminal input waiting when the function is called:

No Delay

The function fails.

Delay


The application waits until text is passed through to the application. If cbreak or Raw Mode is set, this is after one character. Otherwise, this is after the first <newline> character, end-of-line character, or end-of-file character.

The effect of No Delay Mode on function key processing is unspecified.

Echo mode determines whether Curses echoes typed characters to the screen. The effect of Echo mode is analogous to the effect of the ECHO flag in the local mode field of the termios structure associated with the terminal device connected to the window. However, Curses always clears the ECHO flag when invoked, to inhibit the operating system from performing echoing. The method of echoing characters is not identical to the operating system's method of echoing characters, because Curses performs additional processing of terminal input.

If in Echo mode, Curses performs 's's own echoing. Any visible input character is stored in the current or specified window by the input function that the application called, at that window's cursor position, as though addch(3XCURSES) were called, with all consequent effects such as cursor movement and wrapping.

If not in Echo mode, any echoing of input must be performed by the application. Applications often perform their own echoing in a controlled area of the screen, or do not echo at all, so they disable Echo mode.

It may not be possible to turn off echo processing for synchronous and networked asynchronous terminals because echo processing is done directly by the terminals. Applications running on such terminals should be aware that any characters typed will appear on the screen at wherever the cursor is positioned.

Upon successful completion, the keypad() function returns OK. Otherwise, it returns ERR.

No errors are defined.

See attributes(7) for descriptions of the following attributes:

ATTRIBUTE TYPE ATTRIBUTE VALUE
Interface Stability Standard
MT-Level Unsafe

addch(3XCURSES), endwin(3XCURSES), getch(3XCURSES), initscr(3XCURSES), libcurses(3XCURSES), newterm(3XCURSES), nocbreak(3XCURSES), noraw(3XCURSES), attributes(7), standards(7)

June 5, 2002 OmniOS