# curs_trace 3x

## NAME

           _tracef,      _tracedump,     _traceattr,     _traceattr2,
           _nc_tracebits,  _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 *_tracechar(const unsigned char 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 libncurses_g.a, but may be com-
           piled into any model (shared, static, profile) by defining
           the symbol TRACE.

           The principal parts of this interface are the  trace  rou-
           tine which selectively enables different tracing features,
           and the _tracef routine 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 def-
           initions 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.

## 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

           curses(3x).