curs_memleaks(3x) — Linux manual page
curs_memleaks(3X) curs_memleaks(3X)
NAME
exit_curses, exit_terminfo - curses memory-leak checking
SYNOPSIS
#include <curses.h>
void exit_curses(int code);
#include <term.h>
void exit_terminfo(int code);
/* deprecated (intentionally not declared in curses.h or term.h)
*/
void _nc_freeall(void);
void _nc_free_and_exit(int code);
void _nc_free_tinfo(int code);
DESCRIPTION
These functions are used to simplify analysis of memory leaks in
the ncurses library.
Any implementation of curses must not free the memory associated
with a screen, since (even after calling endwin(3X)), it must be
available for use in the next call to refresh(3X). There are al‐
so chunks of memory held for performance reasons. That makes it
hard to analyze curses applications for memory leaks. When using
the specially configured debugging version of the ncurses li‐
brary, applications can call functions which free those chunks of
memory, simplifying the process of memory-leak checking.
Some of the functions are named with a “_nc_” prefix because they
are not intended for use in the non-debugging library:
_nc_freeall
This frees (almost) all of the memory allocated by ncurses.
_nc_free_and_exit
This frees the memory allocated by ncurses (like
_nc_freeall), and exits the program. It is preferred over
_nc_freeall since some of that memory may be required to
keep the application running. Simply exiting (with the giv‐
en exit-code) is safer.
_nc_free_tinfo
Use this function if only the low-level terminfo functions
(and corresponding library) are used. Like _nc_free_and_ex‐
it, it exits the program after freeing memory.
The functions prefixed “_nc” are normally not available; they
must be configured into the library at build time using the
--disable-leaks option. That compiles-in code that frees memory
that normally would not be freed.
The exit_curses and exit_terminfo functions call _nc_free_and_ex‐
it and _nc_free_tinfo if the library is configured to support
memory-leak checking. If the library is not configured to sup‐
port memory-leak checking, they simply call exit.
RETURN VALUE
These functions do not return a value.
PORTABILITY
These functions are not part of X/Open Curses; nor do other im‐
plementations of curses provide a similar feature.
In any implementation of X/Open Curses, an application can free
part of the memory allocated by curses:
• The portable part of exit_curses can be freed using
delscreen, passing the SCREEN* pointer returned by newterm.
In some implementations, there is a global variable sp which
could be used, e.g., if the screen were only initialized us‐
ing initscr.
• The portable part of exit_terminfo can be freed using
del_curterm.
In this case, there is a global variable cur_term which can
be used as parameter.
SEE ALSO
curs_initscr(3X), curs_terminfo(3X). curses(3X).
COLOPHON
This page is part of the ncurses (new curses) project. Informa‐
tion about the project can be found at
⟨https://www.gnu.org/software/ncurses/ncurses.html⟩. If you have
a bug report for this manual page, send it to
bug-ncurses-request@gnu.org. This page was obtained from the
project's upstream Git mirror of the CVS repository
⟨https://github.com/mirror/ncurses.git⟩ on 2024-06-14. (At that
time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
repository was 2023-03-12.) If you discover any rendering
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