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curs_refresh(3X)                                              curs_refresh(3X)



NAME
       doupdate, redrawwin, refresh, wnoutrefresh, wredrawln, wrefresh -refresh wrefreshrefresh
       refresh curses windows and lines

SYNOPSIS
       #include <curses.h>

       int refresh(void);
       int wrefresh(WINDOW *win);
       int wnoutrefresh(WINDOW *win);
       int doupdate(void);
       int redrawwin(WINDOW *win);
       int wredrawln(WINDOW *win, int beg_line, int num_lines);

DESCRIPTION
       The refresh and wrefresh routines (or wnoutrefresh and  doupdate)  must
       be called to get actual output to the terminal, as other routines mere-ly merely
       ly manipulate data structures.  The routine wrefresh copies  the  named
       window to the physical terminal screen, taking into account what is al-ready already
       ready there to do optimizations.  The refresh routine is the same,  us-ing using
       ing stdscr as the default window.  Unless leaveok has been enabled, the
       physical cursor of the terminal is left at the location of  the  cursor
       for that window.

       The wnoutrefresh and doupdate routines allow multiple updates with more
       efficiency than wrefresh alone.  In addition to all the  window  struc-tures, structures,
       tures,  curses  keeps  two  data  structures  representing the terminal
       screen: a physical screen, describing what is actually on  the  screen,
       and  a  virtual screen, describing what the programmer wants to have on
       the screen.

       The routine wrefresh works by first calling wnoutrefresh, which  copies
       the  named  window  to  the  virtual screen, and then calling doupdate,
       which compares the virtual screen to the physical screen and  does  the
       actual  update.   If the programmer wishes to output several windows at
       once, a series of calls to wrefresh results  in  alternating  calls  to
       wnoutrefresh  and  doupdate,  causing  several  bursts of output to the
       screen.  By first calling wnoutrefresh for each window, it is then pos-sible possible
       sible  to  call  doupdate  once, resulting in only one burst of output,
       with fewer total characters transmitted and less CPU time used.  If the
       win  argument  to wrefresh is the global variable curscr, the screen is
       immediately cleared and repainted from scratch.

       The phrase "copies the named window to the virtual screen" above is am-biguous. ambiguous.
       biguous.   What actually happens is that all touched (changed) lines in
       the window are copied to the virtual  screen.   This  affects  programs
       that use overlapping windows; it means that if two windows overlap, you
       can refresh them in either order and the overlap region will  be  modi-fied modified
       fied  only  when  it  is  explicitly  changed.  (But see the section on
       PORTABILITY below for a warning about exploiting this behavior.)

       The wredrawln routine indicates to curses that some  screen  lines  are
       corrupted  and  should  be  thrown away before anything is written over
       them.  It touches the indicated lines (marking them changed).  The rou-tine routine
       tine redrawwin() touches the entire window.

RETURN VALUE
       Routines  that  return an integer return ERR upon failure, and OK (SVr4
       only specifies "an integer value other than ERR") upon successful  com-pletion. completion.
       pletion.

       X/Open does not define any error conditions.  In this implementation

              wnoutrefresh
                   returns  an  error if the window pointer is null, or if the
                   window is really a pad.

              wredrawln
                   returns an error if the associated call to touchln  returns
                   an error.

NOTES
       Note that refresh and redrawwin may be macros.

PORTABILITY
       The XSI Curses standard, Issue 4 describes these functions.

       Whether wnoutrefresh() copies to the virtual screen the entire contents
       of a window or just its changed portions has never been well-documented
       in  historic  curses  versions (including SVr4).  It might be unwise to
       rely on either behavior in programs that might have to be  linked  with
       other  curses  implementations.  Instead, you can do an explicit touch-win() touchwin()
       win() before the wnoutrefresh() call to  guarantee  an  entire-contents
       copy anywhere.

SEE ALSO
       curses(3X), curs_outopts(3X)



                                                              curs_refresh(3X)