NAME

       printw, wprintw, mvprintw, mvwprintw, vwprintw, vw_printw - print formatted output in
       curses windows

SYNOPSIS

       #include <curses.h>

       int printw(const char *fmt, ...);
       int wprintw(WINDOW *win, const char *fmt, ...);
       int mvprintw(int y, int x, const char *fmt, ...);
       int mvwprintw(WINDOW *win, int y, int x, const char *fmt, ...);
       int vw_printw(WINDOW *win, const char *fmt, va_list varglist);

       /* obsolete */
       int vwprintw(WINDOW *win, const char *fmt, va_list varglist);

DESCRIPTION

       The printw, wprintw,  mvprintw  and  mvwprintw  routines  are  analogous  to  printf  [see
       printf(3)].   In  effect,  the  string that would be output by printf is output instead as
       though waddstr were used on the given window.

       The vwprintw and vw_printw routines are analogous to vprintf [see printf(3)] and perform a
       wprintw  using  a variable argument list.  The third argument is a va_list, a pointer to a
       list of arguments, as defined in <stdarg.h>.

RETURN VALUE

       Routines that return an integer return ERR upon failure and OK (SVr4  only  specifies  "an
       integer value other than ERR") upon successful completion.

       X/Open  defines  no error conditions.  In this implementation, an error may be returned if
       it cannot allocate enough memory for the buffer used  to  format  the  results.   It  will
       return an error if the window pointer 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.

HISTORY

       While printw was implemented in 4BSD, it was unused until 4.2BSD (which used it in games).
       That  early version of curses was before the ANSI C standard.  It did not use <varargs.h>,
       though that was available.  In 1991 (a couple of years after SVr4 was generally available,
       and  after  the  C  standard  was  published), other developers updated the library, using
       <stdarg.h> internally in 4.4BSD curses.  Even with this improvement, BSD  curses  did  not
       use function prototypes (or even declare functions) in the <curses.h> header until 1992.

       SVr2  documented  printw,  wprintw tersely as “printf on stdscr” and tersely as “printf on
       win”, respectively.

       SVr3 added mvprintw, and mvwprintw, with  a  three-line  summary  saying  that  they  were
       analogous  to  printf(3),  explaining that the string which would be output from printf(3)
       would instead be output using waddstr on the given  window.   SVr3  also  added  vwprintw,
       saying  that  the  third parameter is a va_list, defined in <varargs.h>, and referring the
       reader to the manual pages for varargs and vprintf for detailed descriptions.

       SVr4 added no new variations of printw, but provided for using <varargs.h>  or  <stdarg.h>
       to define the va_list type.

       X/Open  Curses  added  vw_printw  to replace vwprintw, stating that its va_list definition
       requires <stdarg.h>.

PORTABILITY

       In  this  implementation,  vw_printw  and  vwprintw  are  equivalent,  to  support  legacy
       applications.  However, the latter (vwprintw) is obsolete:

       •   The  XSI Curses standard, Issue 4 described these functions.  The function vwprintw is
           marked TO BE WITHDRAWN, and is to be  replaced  by  a  function  vw_printw  using  the
           <stdarg.h> interface.

       •   The  Single  Unix  Specification,  Version  2  states  that vw_printw  is preferred to
           vwprintw since the latter requires including <varargs.h>, which cannot be used in  the
           same  file  as <stdarg.h>.  This implementation uses <stdarg.h> for both, because that
           header is included in <curses.h>.

       •   X/Open Curses, Issue 5 (December 2007) marked vwprintw (along  with  vwscanw  and  the
           termcap interface) as withdrawn.

SEE ALSO

       ncurses(3NCURSES), addstr(3NCURSES), scanw(3NCURSES), termcap(3NCURSES), printf(3),
       vprintf(3).

                                                                                 printw(3NCURSES)