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curs_extend(3x) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | RETURN VALUE | NOTES | EXTENSIONS | PORTABILITY | AUTHORS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON 

curs_extend(3X)               Library calls               curs_extend(3X)

NAME         top

       curses_version, use_extended_names - miscellaneous ncurses
       extensions

SYNOPSIS         top

       #include <curses.h>

       const char * curses_version(void);
       int use_extended_names(bool bf);

DESCRIPTION         top

       These ncurses extensions to the curses library do not fit easily
       into other functional categories.

   curses_version
       curses_version returns a pointer to a string containing the
       library's name and version number, including its patch level, for
       example “ncurses 6.5.20240720”.

   use_extended_names
       use_extended_names configures whether the library recognizes user-
       defined or nonstandard terminfo capability names that may be
       compiled into terminal type descriptions via the curs_terminfo(3X)
       or curs_termcap(3X) interfaces.  Normally these names are
       available for use, since the essential decision is made through
       use of tic(1)'s -x option to include such extensions in terminal
       type descriptions.  use_extended_names(FALSE) prevents ncurses
       from recognizing these capabilities to ensure compatibility with
       other implementations of curses.

RETURN VALUE         top

       curses_version returns a constant string.

       use_extended_names returns the previous state of extended
       capability name recognition, allowing you to save this property
       and restore it.

NOTES         top

       The pointer returned by curses_version corresponds to statically
       allocated memory; do not attempt to free(3) it.

EXTENSIONS         top

       These functions are ncurses extensions, and are not found in SVr4
       curses, 4.4BSD curses, or any other previous curses
       implementation.

PORTABILITY         top

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

       NetBSD 9 added a curses_version function that intentionally
       returns a string devoid of version information.

AUTHORS         top

       Thomas Dickey

SEE ALSO         top

       ncurses offers several other extensions to the X/Open Curses API.

       curs_getch(3X), curs_inopts(3X), curs_mouse(3X), curs_print(3X),
       curs_util(3X), default_colors(3X), define_key(3X), keybound(3X),
       keyok(3X), new_pair(3X), resizeterm(3X), wresize(3X)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the ncurses (new curses) project.
       Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨https://invisible-island.net/ncurses/ncurses.html⟩.  If you have a
       bug report for this manual page, send it to bug-ncurses@gnu.org.
       This page was obtained from the tarball ncurses-6.6.tar.gz fetched
       from ⟨https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ncurses/⟩ on 2026-01-16.  If you
       discover any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page,
       or you believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the
       page, or you have corrections or improvements to the information
       in this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page),
       send a mail to man-pages@man7.org

ncurses @NCURSES_MAJOR@.@NCU... 2025-11-11                curs_extend(3X)

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