# curs_attr 3x 2025-11-11 ncurses 6.6 Library calls

    curs_attr(3x)                    Library calls                   curs_attr(3x)

## NAME

           attr_get, wattr_get, attr_set, wattr_set, attr_off, wattr_off, attr_on,
           wattr_on, attroff, wattroff, attron, wattron, attrset, wattrset, chgat,
           wchgat,  mvchgat, mvwchgat, color_set, wcolor_set, standend, wstandend,
           standout, wstandout -  manipulate  attributes  of  character  cells  in
           curses windows

## SYNOPSIS

           #include <curses.h>

           int attr_get(attr_t *attrs, short *pair, void *opts);
           int wattr_get(WINDOW *win, attr_t *attrs, short *pair, void *opts);
           int attr_set(attr_t attrs, short pair, void *opts);
           int wattr_set(WINDOW *win, attr_t attrs, short pair, void *opts);

           int attr_off(attr_t attrs, void *opts);
           int wattr_off(WINDOW *win, attr_t attrs, void *opts);
           int attr_on(attr_t attrs, void *opts);
           int wattr_on(WINDOW *win, attr_t attrs, void *opts);

           int attroff(int attrs);
           int wattroff(WINDOW *win, int attrs);
           int attron(int attrs);
           int wattron(WINDOW *win, int attrs);
           int attrset(int attrs);
           int wattrset(WINDOW *win, int attrs);

           int chgat(int n, attr_t attr, short pair, const void *opts);
           int wchgat(WINDOW *win,
                 int n, attr_t attr, short pair, const void *opts);
           int mvchgat(int y, int x,
                 int n, attr_t attr, short pair, const void *opts);
           int mvwchgat(WINDOW *win, int y, int x,
                 int n, attr_t attr, short pair, const void *opts);

           int color_set(short pair, void* opts);
           int wcolor_set(WINDOW *win, short pair, void* opts);

           int standend(void);
           int wstandend(WINDOW *win);
           int standout(void);
           int wstandout(WINDOW *win);

## DESCRIPTION

           These  routines  manipulate the current attributes of the named window,
           which then apply to all characters that are  written  into  the  window
           with  waddch,  waddstr  and  wprintw.  Attributes are a property of the
           character, and move  with  the  character  through  any  scrolling  and
           insert/delete  line/character operations.  To the extent possible, they
           are displayed as appropriate modifications to the graphic rendition  of
           characters put on the screen.

           These  routines do not affect the attributes used when erasing portions
           of the window.   See  curs_bkgd(3x)  for  functions  which  modify  the
           attributes used for erasing and clearing.

### Window Attributes

           There are two sets of functions:

           o   functions   for  manipulating  the  window  attributes  and  color:
               wattr_set and wattr_get.

           o   functions for manipulating only the window attributes (not  color):
               wattr_on and wattr_off.

           The  wattr_set function sets the current attributes of the given window
           to attrs, with color specified by pair.

           Use wattr_get to retrieve attributes for the given window.

           Use attr_on and wattr_on to turn on  window  attributes,  i.e.,  values
           logically "or"-ed together in attr, without affecting other attributes.
           Use  attr_off and wattr_off to turn off window attributes, again values
           logically "or"-ed together in attr, without affecting other attributes.

### Legacy Window Attributes

           The X/Open window attribute routines which set or get, turn on  or  off
           are  extensions  of  older  routines  which assume that color pairs are
           logically "or"-ed into the attribute parameter.  These  newer  routines
           use  similar  names,  because X/Open simply added an underscore (_) for
           the newer names.

           The int datatype used in the legacy routines is treated as if it is the
           same size as chtype (used by addch(3x)).  It  holds  the  common  video
           attributes  (such  as  bold, reverse), as well as a few bits for color.
           Those bits correspond to the  A_COLOR  symbol.   The  COLOR_PAIR  macro
           provides  a  value  which  can  be logically "or"-ed into the attribute
           parameter.  For example, as long as that value fits  into  the  A_COLOR
           mask, then these calls produce similar results:

               attrset(A_BOLD | COLOR_PAIR(pair));
               attr_set(A_BOLD, pair, NULL);

           However, if the value does not fit, then the COLOR_PAIR macro uses only
           the  bits  that fit.  For example, because in ncurses A_COLOR has eight
           (8) bits, then COLOR_PAIR(259) is 4 (i.e., 259 is 4 more than the limit
           255).

           The PAIR_NUMBER macro extracts a pair number from an int  (or  chtype).
           For  example,  the input and output values in these statements would be
           the same:

               int value = A_BOLD | COLOR_PAIR(input);
               int output = PAIR_NUMBER(value);

           The attrset routine is a legacy feature predating SVr4 curses but  kept
           in  X/Open  Curses  for  the  same  reason  that  SVr4  curses kept it:
           compatibility.

           The remaining attr* functions operate exactly  like  the  corresponding
           attr_*  functions,  except  that they take arguments of type int rather
           than attr_t.

           There is no corresponding attrget function as such  in  X/Open  Curses,
           although ncurses provides getattrs (see curs_legacy(3x)).

### Change Character Rendition

           The  routine  chgat  changes  the  attributes  of  a  given  number  of
           characters starting at the current cursor location of stdscr.  It  does
           not update the cursor and does not perform wrapping.  A character count
           of  -1  or  greater  than  the  remaining  window width means to change
           attributes all the way to the end of  the  current  line.   The  wchgat
           function  generalizes  this to any window; the mvwchgat function does a
           cursor move before acting.

           In these functions, the color pair argument is a color pair  index  (as
           in the first argument of init_pair, see curs_color(3x)).

### Change Window Color

           The routine color_set sets the current color of the given window to the
           foreground/background   combination   described   by   the  color  pair
           parameter.

### Standout

           The routine standout is the same as  attron(A_STANDOUT).   The  routine
           standend  is  the  same as attrset(A_NORMAL) or attrset(0), that is, it
           turns off all attributes.

           X/Open Curses does not mark these "restricted", because

           o   they have well established legacy use, and

           o   there is no  ambiguity  about  the  way  the  attributes  might  be
               combined with a color pair.

### Video Attributes

           The  following  video attributes, defined in curses.h, can be passed to
           attron, attroff, attrset, and logically "or"-ed with characters  passed
           to addch(3x).

                  Name           Description
                  -----------------------------------------------------------------
                  A_NORMAL       Normal display (no highlight)
                  A_STANDOUT     Best highlighting mode available
                  A_UNDERLINE    Underlining
                  A_REVERSE      Reverse video
                  A_BLINK        Blinking
                  A_DIM          Half bright
                  A_BOLD         Extra bright or bold
                  A_PROTECT      Protected mode
                  A_INVIS        Invisible or blank mode
                  A_ALTCHARSET   Alternate character set
                  A_ITALIC       Italics (non-X/Open extension)
                  A_ATTRIBUTES   Mask to extract character code
                  A_CHARTEXT     Mask to extract attributes
                  A_COLOR        Mask to extract color pair identifier

           attr_on,  attr_off,  and  attr_set support the foregoing as well as the
           following additional attributes.

                  Name            Description
                  -----------------------------------------------------------------
                  WA_HORIZONTAL   Horizontal highlight
                  WA_LEFT         Left highlight
                  WA_LOW          Low highlight
                  WA_RIGHT        Right highlight
                  WA_TOP          Top highlight
                  WA_VERTICAL     Vertical highlight

## RETURN VALUE

           These functions return OK on success and ERR on failure.

           In ncurses, they return ERR if win is NULL.

           wcolor_set returns ERR if pair is outside the range 0..COLOR_PAIRS-1.

           wattr_get does not fail if its attrs or pair parameter is NULL.

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

## NOTES

           attr_on,  attr_off,  attr_set,  wattr_set,  chgat,  mvchgat,  mvwchgat,
           wchgat, and color_set are part of ncurses's wide-character API, and are
           not available in its non-wide-character configuration.

           attron, wattron, attroff, wattroff, attrset,  wattrset,  standout,  and
           standend may be implemented as macros.

           Color  pair values may be logically "or"-ed with attributes if the pair
           number is less than 256.  The alternate functions such as color_set can
           pass a color pair value directly.  However, ncurses ABI 4 and 5  simply
           logically "or" this value within the alternate functions.  You must use
           ncurses ABI 6 to support more than 256 color pairs.

## EXTENSIONS

           This implementation provides the A_ITALIC attribute for terminals which
           have   the   enter_italics_mode  (sitm)  and  exit_italics_mode  (ritm)
           capabilities.  Italics are not mentioned in X/Open Curses.  Unlike  the
           other  video  attributes,  A_ITALIC  is unrelated to the set_attributes
           capabilities.   This   implementation   makes   the   assumption   that
           exit_attribute_mode may also reset italics.

           Each  of  the functions added by XSI Curses has a parameter opts, which
           X/Open Curses  still  (after  more  than  twenty  years)  documents  as
           reserved  for  future  use,  saying  that  it  should  be  NULL.   This
           implementation uses that parameter in ABI 6  for  the  functions  which
           have a color pair parameter to support extended color pairs:

           o   For functions which modify the color, e.g., wattr_set and wattr_on,
               if  opts  is set it is treated as a pointer to int, and used to set
               the color pair instead of the short pair parameter.

           o   For functions which retrieve the color, e.g., wattr_get, if opts is
               set it is treated as a pointer to int, and  used  to  retrieve  the
               color  pair  as  an int value, in addition to retrieving it via the
               standard pointer to short parameter.

           o   For functions which turn attributes off, e.g., wattr_off, the  opts
               parameter is ignored except to check that it is NULL.

## PORTABILITY

           These  functions  are described in X/Open Curses Issue 4.  It specifies
           no error conditions for them.

           The standard defined the dedicated type for highlights,  attr_t,  which
           was  not defined in SVr4 curses.  The functions taking attr_t arguments
           were not supported under SVr4.

           SVr4 describes the functions not taking attr_t  or  pair  arguments  as
           always returning 1.

           Very old versions of this library did not force an update of the screen
           when  changing  the  attributes.   Use  touchwin to force the screen to
           match the updated attributes.

           X/Open  Curses  states   that   whether   the   traditional   functions
           attron/attroff/attrset  can  manipulate  attributes other than A_BLINK,
           A_BOLD, A_DIM, A_REVERSE, A_STANDOUT, or A_UNDERLINE is  "unspecified".
           Under  this  implementation  as  well  as  SVr4 curses, these functions
           correctly manipulate all other highlights (specifically,  A_ALTCHARSET,
           A_PROTECT, and A_INVIS).

           X/Open Curses added these entry points:

                  attr_get,  attr_on,  attr_off,  attr_set,  wattr_on,  wattr_off,
                  wattr_get, wattr_set

           The new functions are intended to work with a new series  of  highlight
           macros prefixed with WA_.  The older macros have direct counterparts in
           the newer set of names:

                  Name            Description
                  -------------------------------------------------
                  WA_NORMAL       Normal display (no highlight)
                  WA_STANDOUT     Best highlighting mode available
                  WA_UNDERLINE    Underlining
                  WA_REVERSE      Reverse video
                  WA_BLINK        Blinking
                  WA_DIM          Half bright
                  WA_BOLD         Extra bright or bold
                  WA_ALTCHARSET   Alternate character set

           X/Open  Curses  does  not  assign  values to these symbols, nor does it
           state whether or not they are related to the similarly-named  A_NORMAL,
           etc.:

           o   X/Open  Curses  specifies  that  each  pair of corresponding A_ and
               WA_-using  functions  operates  on   the   same   current-highlight
               information.

           o   However,  in  some  implementations,  those  symbols have unrelated
               values.

               For example, the Solaris xpg4 (X/Open) curses declares attr_t to be
               an unsigned short integer (16-bits), while  chtype  is  a  unsigned
               integer (32-bits).  The WA_ symbols in this case are different from
               the  A_  symbols because they are used for a smaller datatype which
               does not represent A_CHARTEXT or A_COLOR.

               In this implementation (as in many others), the values happen to be
               the same because it simplifies copying information  between  chtype
               and cchar_t variables.

           o   Because  ncurses's  attr_t  can  hold  a color pair (in the A_COLOR
               field), a call to wattr_on, wattr_off, or wattr_set may  alter  the
               window's  color.   If  the  color pair information in the attribute
               parameter is zero, no change is made to the window's color.

               This is consistent with SVr4 curses; X/Open Curses does not specify
               this.

           The X/Open  Curses  extended  conformance  level  adds  new  highlights
           A_HORIZONTAL,   A_LEFT,   A_LOW,   A_RIGHT,   A_TOP,   A_VERTICAL  (and
           corresponding WA_ macros for  each).   As  of  August  2013,  no  known
           terminal provides these highlights (i.e., via the sgr1 capability).

## HISTORY

           4BSD  (1980) used a char to represent each cell of the terminal screen.
           It assumed 7-bit character codes, employing the eighth bit of a byte to
           represent a  standout  attribute  (often  implemented  as  bold  and/or
           reverse  video).   It  introduced  standout,  standend,  wstandout, and
           wstandend  functions   to   manipulate   this   bit.    Despite   their
           inflexibility,  they  carried  over into System V curses and ultimately
           X/Open Curses due to their pervasive use in legacy applications.  While
           some 1980s terminals supported  a  variety  of  video  attributes,  BSD
           curses could do nothing with them.

           SVr2  (1984) provided an improved curses library, introducing chtype to
           create the abstract notion of a curses character; this was  by  default
           an  unsigned  short,  with a provision for compile-time redefinition to
           other integral types (a freedom not necessarily available to  users  of
           shared  libraries,  and  in any event a source license was necessary to
           exercise  it).   It  added  the  functions  attron,  attroff,  attrset,
           wattron, wattroff, and wattrset, and defined the A_ macros listed above
           (except for A_ITALIC and A_COLOR) for use by applications to manipulate
           other  attributes.  The values of these macros were not necessarily the
           same in different systems, even among those certified as System V.

           SVr3.2 (1988) added the A_COLOR macro along with a  color  system;  see
           curs_color(3x).

           X/Open  Curses  Issue 4  (1995)  is  largely  based on SVr4 curses, but
           recognized that the wchar_t type of ISO C95 was intended to house  only
           a  single character code, not a sequence of codes combining with a base
           character, let alone could it reliably offer  room  for  a  color  pair
           identifier  and  a  set  of attribute bits with a potential for further
           growth -- thus the standard invented the curses complex character  type
           cchar_t  and a separate type attr_t for storage of attribute bits.  The
           new types brought along several new functions to manipulate them,  some
           corresponding  to  existing  chtype-based functions (attr_on, attr_off,
           attr_set, wattr_on, wattr_off, and wattr_set), and some new (chgat  and
           its variants, color_set, and wcolor_set).

           Different  Unix systems used differently sized bit fields in chtype for
           the character code and the color pair identifier, and took into account
           platforms' different integer sizes (32- versus 64-bit).

           The following  table  showing  the  number  of  bits  for  A_COLOR  and
           A_CHARTEXT  was  gleaned  from  the  curses  header  files  for various
           operating systems and architectures.   The  inferred  architecture  and
           notes  reflect  the format and size of the defined constants as well as
           clues such as the alternate character  set  implementation.   A  32-bit
           library  can  be  used  on  a  64-bit  system,  but not necessarily the
           converse.

                                         Bits
           Year  System        Arch   Color  Char  Notes
           ------------------------------------------------------------------------
           1992  Solaris 5.2   32     6      17    SVr4 curses
           1992  HP-UX 9       32     no     8     SVr2 curses
           1992  AIX 3.2       32     no     23    SVr2 curses
           1994  OSF/1 r3      32     no     23    SVr2 curses
           1995  HP-UX 10.00   32     6      16    SVr3 curses_colr
           1995  HP-UX 10.00   32     6      8     SVr4, X/Open curses
           1995  Solaris 5.4   32/64  7      16    X/Open curses
           1996  AIX 4.2       32     7      16    X/Open curses
           1996  OSF/1 r4      32     6      16    X/Open curses
           1997  HP-UX 11.00   32     6      8     X/Open curses
           2000  UWIN          32/64  7/31   16    uses chtype

           Notes:

              Regarding HP-UX,

              o   HP-UX 10.20 (1996) added support for 64-bit  PA-RISC  processors
                  in 1996.

              o   HP-UX  10.30 (1997) marked "curses_colr" obsolete.  That version
                  of curses was dropped with HP-UX 11.30 in 2006.

              Regarding OSF/1 (and Tru64),

              o   These used 64-bit hardware.   Like  ncurses,  the  OSF/1  curses
                  interface is not customized for 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

              o   Unlike  other  systems  which  evolved  from  AT&T  code,  OSF/1
                  provided a new implementation for X/Open Curses.

              Regarding Solaris,

              o   The initial release of Solaris was in 1992.

              o   Its  XPG4  (X/Open  Curses-conforming)   xcurses   library   was
                  developed  by  Mortice  Kern  Systems  from 1990 to 1995.  Sun's
                  copyright began in 1996.

              o   Sun updated the X/Open Curses interface after 64-bit support was
                  introduced  in  1997,  but  did  not  modify  the  SVr4   curses
                  interface.

              Regarding UWIN,

              o   Development  of  the  curses  library  began in 1991, stopped in
                  2000.

              o   Color support was added in 1998.

              o   The library uses only chtype (not cchar_t).

           Once X/Open Curses was adopted in the mid-1990s, the  constraint  of  a
           32-bit interface with many colors and wide-characters for chtype became
           a  moot  point.   The cchar_t structure (whose size and members are not
           specified in X/Open Curses) could be extended as needed.

           Other interfaces are rarely used now.

           o   BSD curses was improved slightly in 1993/1994 using Keith  Bostic's
               modification  to make the library 8-bit clean for nvi(1).  He moved
               the standout attribute to a structure member.  The resulting 4.4BSD
               curses was replaced by ncurses over the next ten years.

           o   UWIN has been defunct since 2012.

           ncurses 6.0 (2015) added the A_ITALIC macro.

## SEE ALSO

           curses(3x),     curs_addch(3x),     curs_addstr(3x),     curs_bkgd(3x),
           curs_printw(3x), curs_variables(3x)

    ncurses 6.6                       2025-11-11                     curs_attr(3x)