The routine attrset sets the current attributes of the given window to attrs. The routine attroff turns off the named attributes without turning any other attributes on or off. The routine attron turns on the named attributes without affecting any others. The routine standout is the same as attron(A_STANDOUT). The routine standend is the same as attrset(A_NORMAL) or attrset(0), that is, it turns off all attributes.
The routine wattr_get returns the current attribute for the given window; attr_get returns the current attribute for stdscr. The remaining attr_* functions operate exactly like the corresponding attr* functions, except that they take arguments of type attr_t rather than int.
The routine chgat changes the attributes of a given number of characters starting at the current cursor location of stdscr. It does not update the cursor and does not perform wrapping. A character count of -1 or greater than the remaining window width means to change attributes all the way to the end of the current line. The wchgat function generalizes this to any window; the mvwchgat function does a cursor move before acting. In these functions, the color argument is a color-pair index (as in the first argument of init_pair, see curs_color(3x)). The opts argument is not presently used, but is reserved for the future (leave it NULL).
A_NORMAL Normal display (no highlight) A_STANDOUT Best highlighting mode of the terminal. A_UNDERLINE Underlining A_REVERSE Reverse video A_BLINK Blinking A_DIM Half bright A_BOLD Extra bright or bold A_PROTECT Protected mode A_INVIS Invisible or blank mode A_ALTCHARSET Alternate character set A_CHARTEXT Bit-mask to extract a character COLOR_PAIR(n) Color-pair number n
The following macro is the reverse of COLOR_PAIR(n):
PAIR_NUMBER(attrs) Returns the pair number associated
with the COLOR_PAIR(n) attribute.
The return values of many of these routines are not meaningful (they are implemented as macro-expanded assignments and simply return their argument). The SVr4 manual page claims (falsely) that these routines always return 1.
The XSI Curses standard states that whether the traditional functions attron/attroff/attrset can manipulate attributes other than A_BLINK, A_BOLD, A_DIM, A_REVERSE, A_STANDOUT, or A_UNDERLINE is "unspecified". Under this implementation as well as SVr4 curses, these functions correctly manipulate all other highlights (specifically, A_ALTCHARSET, A_PROTECT, and A_INVIS).
XSI Curses added the new entry points, attr_get, attr_on, attr_off, attr_set, wattr_on, wattr_off, wattr_get, wattr_set. These are intended to work with a new series of highlight macros prefixed with WA_.
WA_NORMAL Normal display (no highlight) WA_STANDOUT Best highlighting mode of the terminal. WA_UNDERLINE Underlining WA_REVERSE Reverse video WA_BLINK Blinking WA_DIM Half bright WA_BOLD Extra bright or bold WA_ALTCHARSET Alternate character set
The XSI curses standard specifies that each pair of corresponding A_ and WA_-using functions operates on the same current-highlight information.
The XSI standard extended conformance level adds new highlights A_HORIZONTAL, A_LEFT, A_LOW, A_RIGHT, A_TOP, A_VERTICAL (and corresponding WA_ macros for each) which this curses does not yet support.