curs_clear(3) | Library calls | curs_clear(3)

# NAME

erase, werase, clear, wclear, clrtobot, wclrtobot, clrtoeol, wclrtoeol - clear all or part of a curses window

# SYNOPSIS

#include <curses.h>

int erase(void);
int werase(WINDOW *win);

int clear(void);
int wclear(WINDOW *win);

int clrtobot(void);
int wclrtobot(WINDOW *win);

int clrtoeol(void);
int wclrtoeol(WINDOW *win);

# DESCRIPTION

## erase/werase

The erase and werase routines copy blanks to every position in the window, clearing the screen.

Blanks created by erasure have the current background rendition (as set by wbkgdset(3)) merged into them.

## clear/wclear

The clear and wclear routines are like erase and werase, but they also call clearok(3), so that the screen is cleared completely on the next call to wrefresh for that window and repainted from scratch.

## clrtobot/wclrtobot

The clrtobot and wclrtobot routines erase from the cursor to the end of screen. That is, they erase all lines below the cursor in the window. Also, the current line to the right of the cursor, inclusive, is erased.

## clrtoeol/wclrtoeol

The clrtoeol and wclrtoeol routines erase the current line to the right of the cursor, inclusive, to the end of the current line.

# RETURN VALUE

All routines return the integer OK on success and ERR on failure.

X/Open defines no error conditions. In this implementation,

- functions using a window pointer parameter return an error if it is null
- wclrtoeol returns an error if the cursor position is about to wrap.

# NOTES

Note that erase, werase, clear, wclear, clrtobot, and clrtoeol may be macros.

# PORTABILITY

These functions are described in the XSI Curses standard, Issue 4. The standard specifies that they return ERR on failure, but specifies no error conditions.

The SVr4.0 manual says that these functions could return "a non-negative integer if immedok(3) is set", referring to the return-value of wrefresh. In that implementation, wrefresh would return a count of the number of characters written to the terminal.

Some historic curses implementations had, as an undocumented feature, the ability to do the equivalent of clearok(..., 1) by saying touchwin(stdscr) or clear(stdscr). This will not work under ncurses.

This implementation, and others such as Solaris, sets the current position to 0,0 after erasing via werase and wclear. That fact is not documented in other implementations, and may not be true of implementations which were not derived from SVr4 source.

Not obvious from the description, most implementations clear the screen after wclear even for a subwindow or derived window. If you do not want to clear the screen during the next wrefresh, use werase instead.

# SEE ALSO

curses(3), curs_outopts(3), curs_refresh(3), curs_variables(3)

2023-07-01 | ncurses 6.4