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The menu library provides terminal-independent facilities for composing menu systems on character-cell terminals. The library includes: item routines, which create and modify menu items; and menu routines, which group items into menus, display menus on the screen, and handle interaction with the user.

The menu library uses the curses libraries, and a curses initialization routine such as initscr must be called before using any of these functions. To use the menu library, link with the options -lmenu -lcurses.

Current Default Values for Item Attributes

The menu library maintains a default value for item attributes. You can get or set this default by calling the appropriate get_ or set_ routine with a NULL item pointer. Changing this default with a set_ function affects future item creations, but does not change the rendering of items already created.

Routine Name Index

The following table lists each menu routine and the name of the manual page on which it is described.

RETURN VALUE

Routines that return pointers return NULL on error. Routines that return an integer return one of the following error codes:

E_OK

The routine succeeded.

E_SYSTEM_ERROR

System error occurred (see errno).

E_BAD_ARGUMENT

Routine detected an incorrect or out-of-range argument.

E_POSTED

The menu is already posted.

E_BAD_STATE

Routine was called from an initialization or termination function.

E_NO_ROOM

Menu is too large for its window.

E_NOT_POSTED

The menu has not been posted.

E_UNKNOWN_COMMAND

The menu driver code saw an unknown request code.

E_NO_MATCH

Character failed to match.

E_NOT_SELECTABLE

The designated item cannot be selected.

E_NOT_CONNECTED

No items are connected to the menu.

E_REQUEST_DENIED

The menu driver could not process the request.

NOTES

The header file <menu.h> automatically includes the header files <curses.h> and <eti.h>.

In your library list, libmenu.a should be before libncurses.a; that is, you want to say ‘-lmenu -lncurses’, not the other way around (which would give you a link error using GNU ld(1) and many other linkers).

PORTABILITY

These routines emulate the System V menu library. They were not supported on Version 7 or BSD versions.

AUTHORS

Juergen Pfeifer. Manual pages and adaptation for ncurses by Eric S. Raymond.

menu

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

RETURN VALUE

SEE ALSO

NOTES

PORTABILITY

AUTHORS

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