# curs_clear 3x

    curs_clear(3x)                                                  curs_clear(3x)

## NAME

           erase, werase, clear, wclear, clrtobot, wclrtobot, clrtoeol, wclrtoeol
           - clear all or part of a curses window

## SYNOPSIS

           #include <curses.h>

           int erase(void);
           int werase(WINDOW *win);

           int clear(void);
           int wclear(WINDOW *win);

           int clrtobot(void);
           int wclrtobot(WINDOW *win);

           int clrtoeol(void);
           int wclrtoeol(WINDOW *win);

## DESCRIPTION

### erase/werase

           The erase and werase routines copy blanks to every position in the win-
           dow, clearing the screen.

           Blanks created by erasure have the current background rendition (as set
           by wbkgdset(3x)) merged into them.

### clear/wclear

           The clear and wclear routines are like erase and werase, but they  also
           call  clearok(3x), so that the screen is cleared completely on the next
           call to wrefresh for that window and repainted from scratch.

### clrtobot/wclrtobot

           The clrtobot and wclrtobot routines erase from the cursor to the end of
           screen.   That is, they erase all lines below the cursor in the window.
           Also, the current line to  the  right  of  the  cursor,  inclusive,  is
           erased.

### clrtoeol/wclrtoeol

           The clrtoeol and wclrtoeol routines erase the current line to the right
           of the cursor, inclusive, to the end of the current line.

## RETURN VALUE

           All routines return the integer OK on success and ERR on failure.

           X/Open defines no error conditions.  In this implementation,

           o   functions using a window pointer parameter return an error if it is
               null

           o   wclrtoeol returns an error if the cursor position is about to wrap.

## NOTES

           Note  that  erase, werase, clear, wclear, clrtobot, and clrtoeol may be
           macros.

## PORTABILITY

           These functions are described in the XSI Curses standard, Issue 4.  The
           standard  specifies  that  they return ERR on failure, but specifies no
           error conditions.

           The SVr4.0 manual says that these functions could return  "a  non-nega-
           tive  integer  if immedok(3x) is set", referring to the return-value of
           wrefresh.  In that implementation, wrefresh would return a count of the
           number of characters written to the terminal.

           Some  historic  curses implementations had, as an undocumented feature,
           the ability to do the equivalent of clearok(..., 1)  by  saying  touch-
           win(stdscr) or clear(stdscr).  This will not work under ncurses.

           This implementation, and others such as Solaris, sets the current posi-
           tion to 0,0 after erasing via werase and wclear.  That fact is not doc-
           umented  in  other  implementations, and may not be true of implementa-
           tions which were not derived from SVr4 source.

           Not obvious from the description, most implementations clear the screen
           after  wclear  even  for  a subwindow or derived window.  If you do not
           want to clear the screen during the next wrefresh, use werase instead.

## SEE ALSO

           curses(3x), curs_outopts(3x), curs_refresh(3x), curs_variables(3x)

                                                                    curs_clear(3x)