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 e.g.,
       libncurses_g.a, but may be compiled into any model (shared,  static,  profile)  by  defining  the  symbol
       TRACE.   Additionally,  some  functions  are  only available with the wide-character configuration of the
       libraries.

       The principal parts of this interface are

       •   trace, which selectively enables different tracing features, and

       •   _tracef, 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
       parameter  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.

       The other functions either return a pointer to a string-area (allocated by the  corresponding  function),
       or  return  no value (such as _tracedump, which implements the screen dump for TRACE_UPDATE).  The caller
       should not free these strings, since the allocation is reused on successive calls.  To  work  around  the
       problem  of a single string-area per function, some use a buffer-number parameter, telling the library to
       allocate additional string-areas.

       These functions check the NCURSES_TRACE environment variable, to set the tracing feature as if trace  was
       called:

              filter, initscr, new_prescr, newterm, nofilter, restartterm, ripoffline, setupterm, slk_init,
              tgetent, use_env, use_extended_names, use_tioctl

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)