ncurses - printw on characters with attributes.

I'm trying to output a formatted string with one of the characters set to bold. This is my attempt, which doesn't output '1' in bold:

Code:

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printw("%c. Generate packed value\n  ", '1' || A_BOLD);

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The reasoning for this came from the fact, the documentation notes that printw calls have their output done through the addch routine, not printf. I believe the reason why it fails is perhaps because it firsts formats the string and only then outputs.

Other than dividing the output with one call to addch and another to addstr, is there any way I can do this?

Just noticed a small typo. I'm actually using:

Code:

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printw("%c. Generate packed value\n  ", '1' | A_BOLD);

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Not the logical or (||).

I just don't understand why isn't '1' output bold, considering that printw calls addch.

Having not used ncurses in over 10 years, I don't know exactly, but wouldn't '1' | A_BOLD morph the char into something completely different? And, if A_BOLD is 1, 16, or 32 then the value would not change. . .

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kennedy

Having not used ncurses in over 10 years, I don't know exactly, but wouldn't '1' | A_BOLD morph the char into something completely different?

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Yes it would. A chtype (a typedef for unsigned long). The answer is partly there.

You eventually reminded me to check the official documentation that comes with PDCurses, instead of the website I was looking at. And because of that alone, thanks ;)

First, it is not true printw will call addch. It will call addstr. And addstr will only handle const char*, which means no embed attributes.

Second, and this one is my fault for not having realized the obvious, I cannot expect to construct an array of chtypes from a null-terminated string without some kind of help in the form of a function.

Then it is just a matter of using "strings" (read arrays) of chtypes with the addchstr family of functions, which do accept const chtype*.

Quote:

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Second, and this one is my fault for not having realized the obvious, I cannot expect to construct an array of chtypes from a null-terminated string without some kind of help in the form of a function.

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Why not? printfw has to perform character-at-a-time parsing of the string anyhow. There's no compelling reason for printw to work by calling addstr instead of calling addch. I was surprised to see this is how printw works too.

First, it wouldn't matter if it called addch. Since printw expects an 8 bit charater string, addch wouldn't still output with embed attributes.

As a matter of a fact printw does output through addch. But it does it because it calls addstr, which in turn calls addch.

I think it does that to avoid reinventing the wheel.

Just took a look at ncurses source code. printw sends the whole thing to the vsprintf() standard function for parsing. It doesn't do it itself.