NAME

       inchstr,  inchnstr,  winchstr,  winchnstr,  mvinchstr, mvinchnstr, mvwinchstr, mvwinchnstr - get a curses
       character string from a window

SYNOPSIS

       #include <curses.h>

       int inchstr(chtype * chstr);
       int inchnstr(chtype * chstr, int n);
       int winchstr(WINDOW * win, chtype * chstr);
       int winchnstr(WINDOW * win, chtype * chstr, int n);

       int mvinchstr(int y, int x, chtype * chstr);
       int mvinchnstr(int y, int x, chtype * chstr, int n);
       int mvwinchstr(WINDOW * win, int y, int x, chtype * chstr);
       int mvwinchnstr(WINDOW * win, int y, int x, chtype * chstr, int n);

DESCRIPTION

       winchstr extracts a curses character string from a curses window win, starting at the cursor and stopping
       at the end of the line, and stores it in chstr, terminating it with a null curses  character.   winchnstr
       does the same, but copies at most n curses characters from win.  A negative n implies no limit; winchnstr
       then works like winchstr.  ncurses(3NCURSES) describes the variants of these functions.

RETURN VALUE

       These functions return OK on success and ERR on failure.

       In ncurses, these functions fail if

       •   the curses screen has not been initialized,

       •   (for functions taking a WINDOW pointer argument) win is a null pointer, or

       •   chstr is a null pointer.

       Functions prefixed with “mv” first perform cursor movement and fail if the position (y, x) is outside the
       window boundaries.

NOTES

       All of these functions except winchnstr may be implemented as macros.

       Reading  a  line  that overflows the array pointed to by chstr and its variants causes undefined results.
       Instead, use the n-infixed functions with a positive n argument no larger than the  size  of  the  buffer
       backing chstr.

EXTENSIONS

       inchnstr,  winchnstr,  mvinchnstr,  and  mvwinchnstr's  acceptance  of  negative  n  values is an ncurses
       extension.

PORTABILITY

       Applications  employing  ncurses  extensions  should  condition  their  use  on  the  visibility  of  the
       NCURSES_VERSION preprocessor macro.

       X/Open  Curses  Issue 4  describes  these  functions.   It  specifies  no  error conditions for them.  It
       characterizes the strings stored by these functions as containing “at most n elements” from a window, but
       does not specify whether the string stored by these functions is null-terminated.

       SVr4 does not document whether it null-terminates the curses character string it  stores  in  chstr,  and
       does not document whether a trailing null curses character counts toward the length limit n.

       SVr4 describes a successful return value only as “an integer value other than ERR”.

HISTORY

       SVr3.1 (1987) introduced these functions.

SEE ALSO

       in_wchstr(3NCURSES)  describes  comparable  functions  of  the  ncurses  library  in  its  wide-character
       configuration (ncursesw).

       ncurses(3NCURSES), inch(3NCURSES), inwstr(3NCURSES)

ncurses 6.5                                        2025-10-20                                  inchstr(3NCURSES)