NAME

       _tracef, _tracedump, _traceattr, _traceattr2, _nc_tracebits, _tracecchar_t, _tracecchar_t2, _tracechar,
       _tracechtype, _tracechtype2, _tracemouse, trace - curses debugging routines

SYNOPSIS

       #include <curses.h>

       void _tracef(const char *format, ...);
       void _tracedump(const char *label, WINDOW *win);
       char *_traceattr(attr_t attr);
       char *_traceattr2(int buffer, chtype ch);
       char *_nc_tracebits(void);
       char * _tracecchar_t(const cchar_t *string);
       char * _tracecchar_t2(int buffer, const cchar_t *string);
       char *_tracechar(int ch);
       char *_tracechtype(chtype ch);
       char *_tracechtype2(int buffer, chtype ch);
       char *_tracemouse(const MEVENT *event);
       void trace(const unsigned int param);

DESCRIPTION

       The  trace  routines  are used for debugging the ncurses libraries, as well as applications which use the
       ncurses libraries.  These functions are normally available only  with  the  debugging  library  libncurs‐
       es_g.a, but may be compiled into any model (shared, static, profile) by defining the symbol TRACE.  Addi‐
       tionally, some functions are only available with the wide-character configuration of the libraries.

       The  principal  parts of this interface are the trace routine which selectively enables different tracing
       features, and the _tracef routine which writes formatted data to the trace file.

       Calling trace with a nonzero parameter opens the file trace in the current directory for output.  The pa‐
       rameter is formed by OR'ing values from the list of TRACE_xxx definitions in <curses.h>.  These include:

       TRACE_DISABLE
            turn off tracing.

       TRACE_TIMES
            trace user and system times of updates.

       TRACE_TPUTS
            trace tputs calls.

       TRACE_UPDATE
            trace update actions, old & new screens.

       TRACE_MOVE
            trace cursor movement and scrolling.

       TRACE_CHARPUT
            trace all character outputs.

       TRACE_ORDINARY
            trace all update actions.  The old and new screen contents are written to the trace  file  for  each
            refresh.

       TRACE_CALLS
            trace all curses calls.  The parameters for each call are traced, as well as return values.

       TRACE_VIRTPUT
            trace virtual character puts, i.e., calls to addch.

       TRACE_IEVENT
            trace low-level input processing, including timeouts.

       TRACE_BITS
            trace state of TTY control bits.

       TRACE_ICALLS
            trace internal/nested calls.

       TRACE_CCALLS
            trace per-character calls.

       TRACE_DATABASE
            trace read/write of terminfo/termcap data.

       TRACE_ATTRS
            trace changes to video attributes and colors.

       TRACE_MAXIMUM
            maximum trace level, enables all of the separate trace features.

       Some  tracing  features are enabled whenever the trace parameter is nonzero.  Some features overlap.  The
       specific names are used as a guideline.

       These functions check the NCURSES_TRACE environment variable, to set the tracing feature as if trace  was
       called:
              filter, initscr, new_prescr, newterm, nofilter, ripoffline, setupterm, slk_init, tgetent

RETURN VALUE

       Routines which return a value are designed to be used as parameters to the _tracef routine.

PORTABILITY

       These  functions  are not part of the XSI interface.  Some other curses implementations are known to have
       similar, undocumented features, but they are not compatible with ncurses.

SEE ALSO

       ncurses(3NCURSES).

                                                                                                 trace(3NCURSES)