# curs_scanw 3x

    curs_scanw(3x)                                                  curs_scanw(3x)

## NAME

           scanw, wscanw, mvscanw, mvwscanw, vwscanw, vw_scanw - convert formatted
           input from a curses window

## SYNOPSIS

           #include <curses.h>

           int scanw(const char *fmt, ...);
           int wscanw(WINDOW *win, const char *fmt, ...);
           int mvscanw(int y, int x, const char *fmt, ...);
           int mvwscanw(WINDOW *win, int y, int x, const char *fmt, ...);

           int vw_scanw(WINDOW *win, const char *fmt, va_list varglist);

           /* obsolete */
           int vwscanw(WINDOW *win, const char *fmt, va_list varglist);

## DESCRIPTION

           The scanw, wscanw and mvscanw routines  are  analogous  to  scanf  [see
           scanf(3)].   The  effect  of  these  routines is as though wgetstr were
           called on the  window,  and  the  resulting  line  used  as  input  for
           sscanf(3).   Fields which do not map to a variable in the fmt field are
           lost.

           The vwscanw and vw_scanw routines are  analogous  to  vscanf(3).   They
           perform a wscanw using a variable argument list.  The third argument is
           a va_list, a pointer to a list of arguments, as defined in <stdarg.h>.

## RETURN VALUE

           vwscanw returns ERR on failure and an integer equal to  the  number  of
           fields scanned on success.

           Applications  may  use the return value from the scanw, wscanw, mvscanw
           and mvwscanw routines to determine the  number  of  fields  which  were
           mapped in the call.

           Functions  with  a  "mv"  prefix  first perform a cursor movement using
           wmove, and return an error if the position is outside the window, or if
           the window pointer is null.

## HISTORY

           While  scanw  was implemented in 4BSD, none of the BSD releases used it
           until 4.4BSD (in a game).  That early version of curses was before  the
           ANSI  C  standard.   It  did  not  use  <varargs.h>,  though  that  was
           available.  In 1991  (a  couple  of  years  after  SVr4  was  generally
           available,  and  after  the C standard was published), other developers
           updated the library, using  <stdarg.h>  internally  in  4.4BSD  curses.
           Even  with this improvement, BSD curses did not use function prototypes
           (or even declare functions) in the <curses.h> header until 1992.

           SVr2 documented scanw, wscanw tersely as  "scanf  through  stdscr"  and
           tersely as "scanf through win", respectively.

           SVr3 added mvscanw, and mvwscanw, with a three-line summary saying that
           they were analogous to scanf(3), explaining that the string which would
           be  output  from  scanf(3) would instead be output using waddstr on the
           given window.  SVr3 also added vwscanw, saying that the third parameter
           is  a  va_list, defined in <varargs.h>, and referring the reader to the
           manual  pages  for  varargs  and  vprintf  for  detailed  descriptions.
           (Because the SVr3 documentation does not mention vscanf, that reference
           to vprintf may not be an error).

           SVr4  added  no  new  variations  of  scanw,  but  provided  for  using
           <varargs.h> or <stdarg.h> to define the va_list type.

           X/Open  Curses  added  vw_scanw  to  replace  vwscanw, stating that its
           va_list definition requires <stdarg.h>.

## PORTABILITY

           In this implementation, vw_scanw and vwscanw are equivalent, to support
           legacy applications.  However, the latter (vwscanw) is obsolete:

           o   The  XSI Curses standard, Issue 4 described these functions, noting
               that the function vwscanw is marked TO BE WITHDRAWN, and is  to  be
               replaced by a function vw_scanw using the <stdarg.h> interface.

           o   The  Single  Unix Specification, Version 2 states that vw_scanw  is
               preferred  to  vwscanw  since   the   latter   requires   including
               <varargs.h>,  which  cannot be used in the same file as <stdarg.h>.
               This implementation uses <stdarg.h> for both, because  that  header
               is included in <curses.h>.

           o   X/Open  Curses,  Issue 5 (December 2007) marked vwscanw (along with
               vwprintw and the termcap interface) as withdrawn.

           Both XSI and The Single Unix Specification, Version 2 state that  these
           functions return ERR or OK.

           o   Since  the  underlying  scanf(3)  can  return  the  number of items
               scanned, and the SVr4 code was documented to use this feature, this
               is  probably  an  editing error which was introduced in XSI, rather
               than being done intentionally.

           o   This implementation  returns  the  number  of  items  scanned,  for
               compatibility  with  SVr4  curses.   As of 2018, NetBSD curses also
               returns the number of  items  scanned.   Both  ncurses  and  NetBSD
               curses call vsscanf to scan the string, which returns EOF on error.

           o   Portable  applications should only test if the return value is ERR,
               since the OK value (zero) is likely to be misleading.

               One possible way to get useful results  would  be  to  use  a  "%n"
               conversion at the end of the format string to ensure that something
               was processed.

## SEE ALSO

           curses(3x), curs_getstr(3x), curs_printw(3x), curs_termcap(3x),
           scanf(3).

                                                                    curs_scanw(3x)