form
Section: Miscellaneous Library Functions (3X)
Updated:
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NAME
form - curses extension for programming forms
SYNOPSIS
#include <form.h>
DESCRIPTION
The
form library provides terminal-independent facilities for composing
form screens on character-cell terminals. The library includes: field
routines, which create and modify form fields; and form routines, which group
fields into forms, display forms on the screen, and handle interaction with the
user.
The form library uses the curses libraries.
To use the form library, link with the options
-lform -lcurses.
Your program should set up the locale, e.g.,
setlocale(LC_ALL, "");
so that input/output processing will work.
A curses initialization routine such as initscr must be called
before using any of these functions.
Current Default Values for Field Attributes
The
form library maintains a default value for field attributes. You
can get or set this default by calling the appropriate
set_
or retrieval
routine with a
NULL field pointer. Changing this default with a
set_ function affects future field creations, but does not change the
rendering of fields already created.
Routine Name Index
The following table lists each
form routine and the name of
the manual page on which it is described.
RETURN VALUE
Routines that return pointers return
NULL on error,
and set errno to the corresponding error-code returned by functions
returning an integer.
Routines that return
an integer return one of the following error codes:
- E_OK
-
The routine succeeded.
- E_BAD_ARGUMENT
-
Routine detected an incorrect or out-of-range argument.
- E_BAD_STATE
-
Routine was called from an initialization or termination function.
- E_CONNECTED
-
The field is already connected to a form.
- E_INVALID_FIELD
-
Contents of a field are not valid.
- E_NOT_CONNECTED
-
No fields are connected to the form.
- E_NOT_POSTED
-
The form has not been posted.
- E_NO_ROOM
-
Form is too large for its window.
- E_POSTED
-
The form is already posted.
- E_REQUEST_DENIED
-
The form driver could not process the request.
- E_SYSTEM_ERROR
-
System error occurred (see errno).
- E_UNKNOWN_COMMAND
-
The form driver code saw an unknown request code.
NOTES
The header file
<form.h> automatically includes the header files
<curses.h> and
<eti.h>.
In your library list, libform.a should be before libncurses.a; that is,
you want to say `-lform -lncurses', not the other way around (which would
give you a link error using most linkers).
PORTABILITY
These routines emulate the System V forms library. They were not supported on
Version 7 or BSD versions.
AUTHORS
Juergen Pfeifer. Manual pages and adaptation for ncurses by Eric
S. Raymond.
SEE ALSO
curses(3X) and related pages whose names begin "form_" for detailed
descriptions of the entry points.
This describes ncurses
version 6.0 (patch 20150808).
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- Current Default Values for Field Attributes
-
- Routine Name Index
-
- RETURN VALUE
-
- NOTES
-
- PORTABILITY
-
- AUTHORS
-
- SEE ALSO
-