beep(3NCURSES)

💖 beep — bestie, it's giving "ring the (visual) bell of the terminal with curses" 💖

okay so real talk, this is a page from the ncurses library calls manual (yes, 3NCURSES, the library-call section, not some command you type) — and it's about the two cutest little attention-getters in all of curses: beep and flash. 🎀

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

#include <curses.h>

int beep(void);
int flash(void);

that's it. that's the whole vibe. two functions, zero arguments, no notes. 💅

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so beep and flash are literally just here to alert the terminal user, bestie. beep does it by sounding the terminal's audible alarm (yes, the actual noise, iconic), and flash does it by visibly attracting attention instead. 🦋

the way most terminals do a visual bell? they momentarily reverse the character foreground and background colors on the entire display. and no cap — even a monochrome device can pull this off. slay. 👑

and here's the bestie behaviour we love: these functions each attempt the other alert type if the one requested is unavailable. so like, you asked for a beep but there's no beep? it'll try to flash for you instead. mutual aid, honestly. 🫶

but if neither is available, curses performs no action. nothing. silence. the void. 💀

also just so you know: nearly all terminals have an audible alert mechanism, like a bell or a piezoelectric buzzer, but only some can flash the screen. so like… flash girlies are a select few. 😭

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⭐ RETURN VALUE ⭐

these functions return OK on success and ERR on failure. simple as that, fr fr.

in ncurses specifically: beep and flash return OK if the terminal type supports the corresponding capability — bell (bel) for beep, and flash_screen (flash) for flash. otherwise they return ERR. periodt. 💅

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🎀 EXTENSIONS 🎀

in ncurses, these functions can return ERR.

(yes that's the whole section. short king behaviour. 👑)

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🦋 PORTABILITY 🦋

X/Open Curses Issue 4 describes these functions. it specifies no error conditions for them. so like, it never promised you anything. 🙈

on SVr4 curses, they always return OK, and X/Open Curses specifies them as doing so. so if you're on SVr4, everything's fine always, apparently. must be nice. ✨

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🌈 HISTORY 🌈

SVr2 (1984) introduced beep and flash. ancient icons, honestly. they've been doing this since before most of us were born. 🔥

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💜 SEE ALSO 💜

• ncurses(3NCURSES)
• terminfo(5)

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okay bye bestie, go beep responsibly 🍓💖

this page came to you courtesy of ncurses 6.6, dated 2025-02-01 — so like, freshly iconic, and remember: the manual page is titled beep(3NCURSES), library calls section, iykyk. 💅✨