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<H1 class="no-header">curs_printw 3x 2025-08-16 ncurses 6.6 Library calls</H1>
<PRE>
<STRONG><A HREF="curs_printw.3x.html">curs_printw(3x)</A></STRONG> Library calls <STRONG><A HREF="curs_printw.3x.html">curs_printw(3x)</A></STRONG>
</PRE><H2><a name="h2-NAME">NAME</a></H2><PRE>
<STRONG>printw</STRONG>, <STRONG>wprintw</STRONG>, <STRONG>mvprintw</STRONG>, <STRONG>mvwprintw</STRONG>, <STRONG>vwprintw</STRONG>, <STRONG>vw_printw</STRONG> - write
formatted output to a <EM>curses</EM> window
</PRE><H2><a name="h2-SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a></H2><PRE>
<STRONG>#include</STRONG> <STRONG><curses.h></STRONG>
<STRONG>int</STRONG> <STRONG>printw(const</STRONG> <STRONG>char</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG><EM>fmt</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>...);</STRONG>
<STRONG>int</STRONG> <STRONG>wprintw(WINDOW</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG><EM>win</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>const</STRONG> <STRONG>char</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG><EM>fmt</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>...);</STRONG>
<STRONG>int</STRONG> <STRONG>mvprintw(int</STRONG> <EM>y</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>int</STRONG> <EM>x</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>const</STRONG> <STRONG>char</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG><EM>fmt</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>...);</STRONG>
<STRONG>int</STRONG> <STRONG>mvwprintw(WINDOW</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG><EM>win</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>int</STRONG> <EM>y</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>int</STRONG> <EM>x</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>const</STRONG> <STRONG>char</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG><EM>fmt</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>...);</STRONG>
<STRONG>int</STRONG> <STRONG>vw_printw(WINDOW</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG><EM>win</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>const</STRONG> <STRONG>char</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG><EM>fmt</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>va_list</STRONG> <EM>varglist</EM><STRONG>);</STRONG>
<EM>/*</EM> <EM>obsolete</EM> <EM>*/</EM>
<STRONG>int</STRONG> <STRONG>vwprintw(WINDOW</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG><EM>win</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>const</STRONG> <STRONG>char</STRONG> <STRONG>*</STRONG><EM>fmt</EM><STRONG>,</STRONG> <STRONG>va_list</STRONG> <EM>varglist</EM><STRONG>);</STRONG>
</PRE><H2><a name="h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a></H2><PRE>
<STRONG>printw</STRONG>, <STRONG>wprintw</STRONG>, <STRONG>mvprintw</STRONG>, and <STRONG>mvwprintw</STRONG> are analogous to <STRONG>printf(3)</STRONG>.
In effect, the string that would be output by <STRONG>printf(3)</STRONG> is instead
output as though <STRONG><A HREF="curs_addstr.3x.html">waddstr(3x)</A></STRONG> were used with <EM>win</EM> (or <STRONG>stdscr</STRONG>) as its
first argument.
<STRONG>vwprintw</STRONG> and <STRONG>vw_printw</STRONG> are analogous to <STRONG>vprintf(3)</STRONG>, and perform a
<STRONG>wprintw</STRONG> using a variable argument list. The third argument is a
<EM>va</EM><STRONG>_</STRONG><EM>list</EM>, a pointer to a list of arguments, as defined in <EM>stdarg.h</EM>.
</PRE><H2><a name="h2-RETURN-VALUE">RETURN VALUE</a></H2><PRE>
These functions return <STRONG>ERR</STRONG> upon failure and <STRONG>OK</STRONG> upon success.
In <EM>ncurses</EM>, failure occurs if the library cannot allocate enough memory
for the buffer into which the output is formatted, or if the window
pointer <EM>win</EM> is null.
Functions prefixed with "mv" first perform cursor movement and fail if
the position (<EM>y</EM>, <EM>x</EM>) is outside the window boundaries.
</PRE><H2><a name="h2-NOTES">NOTES</a></H2><PRE>
No wide character counterpart functions are defined by the "wide"
<EM>ncurses</EM> configuration nor by any standard. To format and write a wide-
character string to a <EM>curses</EM> window, consider using <STRONG>swprintf(3)</STRONG> and
<STRONG><A HREF="curs_addwstr.3x.html">waddwstr(3x)</A></STRONG> or similar.
</PRE><H2><a name="h2-PORTABILITY">PORTABILITY</a></H2><PRE>
X/Open Curses Issue 4 describes these functions. It specifies no error
conditions for them.
<EM>ncurses</EM> defines <STRONG>vw_printw</STRONG> and <STRONG>vwprintw</STRONG> identically to support legacy
applications. However, the latter is obsolete.
<STRONG>o</STRONG> X/Open Curses Issue 4 Version 2 (1996), marked <STRONG>vwprintw</STRONG> as
requiring <EM>varargs.h</EM> and "TO BE WITHDRAWN", and specified <STRONG>vw_printw</STRONG>
using the <EM>stdarg.h</EM> interface.
<STRONG>o</STRONG> X/Open Curses Issue 5, Draft 2 (December 2007) marked <STRONG>vwprintw</STRONG>
(along with <STRONG>vwscanw</STRONG> and the <EM>termcap</EM> interface) as withdrawn. After
incorporating review comments, this became X/Open Curses Issue 7
(2009).
<STRONG>o</STRONG> <EM>ncurses</EM> provides <STRONG>vwprintw</STRONG>, but marks it as deprecated.
</PRE><H2><a name="h2-HISTORY">HISTORY</a></H2><PRE>
4BSD (1980) introduced <EM>wprintw</EM> and its variants. It implemented all as
functions, not macros; this initial distribution of <EM>curses</EM> preceded the
ANSI C standard of 1989, prior to which a variadic macro facility was
not widely available in the language. <EM>printw</EM> went unused in Berkeley
distributions until 4.1cBSD (1983), which employed it in games. 4BSD's
<EM>wprintw</EM> did not use <EM>varargs.h</EM>, which had been available since Seventh
Edition Unix (1979). In 1991 (a couple of years after SVr4 was
generally available, and after the C standard was published), other
developers updated the library, using <EM>stdarg.h</EM> internally in 4.4BSD
<EM>curses</EM>. Even with this improvement, BSD <EM>curses</EM> did not use function
prototypes (nor even declare functions) in <EM>curses.h</EM> until 1992.
4BSD documented <EM>printw</EM> and <EM>wprintw</EM> tersely as "printf on <EM>stdscr</EM>" and
"printf on <EM>win</EM>", respectively.
SVr3 summarized the functions in three lines, asserting that they were
analogous to <STRONG>printf(3)</STRONG> and explaining that the string that <STRONG>printf(3)</STRONG>
would write to the standard output stream would instead be output using
<EM>waddstr</EM> to the given window.
SVr3 added <EM>vwprintw</EM>, describing its third parameter as a <EM>va</EM><STRONG>_</STRONG><EM>list</EM>,
defined in <EM>varargs.h</EM>, and referred the reader to the manual pages for
<EM>varargs</EM> and <EM>vprintf</EM> for detailed descriptions.
SVr4 (1989) introduced no new variations of <EM>printw</EM>, but provided for
using either <EM>varargs.h</EM> or <EM>stdarg.h</EM> to define the <EM>va</EM><STRONG>_</STRONG><EM>list</EM> type.
X/Open Curses Issue 4 (1995), defined <EM>vw</EM><STRONG>_</STRONG><EM>printw</EM> to replace <EM>vwprintw</EM>,
stating that its <EM>va</EM><STRONG>_</STRONG><EM>list</EM> type is defined in <EM>stdarg.h</EM>.
</PRE><H2><a name="h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></H2><PRE>
<STRONG><A HREF="ncurses.3x.html">curses(3x)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="curs_addstr.3x.html">curs_addstr(3x)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG><A HREF="curs_scanw.3x.html">curs_scanw(3x)</A></STRONG>, <STRONG>printf(3)</STRONG>, <STRONG>vprintf(3)</STRONG>
ncurses 6.6 2025-08-16 <STRONG><A HREF="curs_printw.3x.html">curs_printw(3x)</A></STRONG>
</PRE>
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<ul>
<li><a href="#h2-NAME">NAME</a></li>
<li><a href="#h2-SYNOPSIS">SYNOPSIS</a></li>
<li><a href="#h2-DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</a></li>
<li><a href="#h2-RETURN-VALUE">RETURN VALUE</a></li>
<li><a href="#h2-NOTES">NOTES</a></li>
<li><a href="#h2-PORTABILITY">PORTABILITY</a></li>
<li><a href="#h2-HISTORY">HISTORY</a></li>
<li><a href="#h2-SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</a></li>
</ul>
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